Michele Bachmann: A Fact Checker’s dream

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...481a6b8-c85e-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_blog.html


Michele Bachmann: A Fact Checker’s dream


The announcement that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is not seeking reelection will leave the Capitol a much less interesting place to fact check. As one of our colleagues put it, “The entire fact checking industry may have to hold a national day of mourning.”

Bachmann is not just fast and loose with the facts; she is consistently and unapologetically so. No other lawmaker earned as high a percentage of Four-Pinocchio ratings as Bachmann — and she earned an average of more than Three Pinocchios as a presidential candidate. Thus she provided a window into the no-holds-barred politics that has come to characterize modern-day Washington.

Just this year, she has earned four Four-Pinocchio ratings. Below are links to those columns — as well as a round-up of her worst campaign-related comments. Click on the headline to read the full column.


‘Barack Obama has a $1.4 billion-a-year presidency of perks and excess’

Bachmann claimed that President Obama spent $1.4 billion on perks in the White House. But most of this money was for Secret Service protection and helicopters — and Obama’s spending appeared to be lower than that for George W. Bush.







‘70 percent of food stamps go to bureaucrats’

Bachmann claimed that 70 percent of the food stamp budget went to Washington bureaucrats. This turned out to be an extreme misinterpretation of the data. The actual amount of the food stamp budget that goes to the “bureaucrats” who manage the program is less than one-third of 1 percent. Even counting all administrative expenses only adds up to 6 percent.







‘I voted against the sequester bill because of cuts to the poor’

This was an odd bit of revisionist history. She did vote against the law that established the sequester, but because she said it did not cut spending enough. She began to express concerns about the impact on the poor only after the sequester kicked in.







‘The most personal, sensitive, intimate, private health-care information is in the hands of the IRS’

Bachmann leaped onto the bash-the-IRS bandwagon with this false claim that the tax agency would have control of personal health-care information as a result of President Obama’s health-care law. But no data would be stored in any sort of database, as she claimed.






‘I don’t think I said anything inaccurate in the debates’

After Bachmann patted herself on the back for her debate performance, we produced this round-up of her major-league errors.

 

I'm not quite sure how Bachmann got in there in the first place. Especially in a deep blue state like Minnesota.

 

Even deep blue states have small pockets of crazy people

She won her last race by only 4,700 votes after massively outspending him ,she knew she was toast next time

 

Kinda sad really, there aren't many good looking ladies who are that much entertainment. That was one of the cool things about Palin, good lookng and batshit crazy.

 

“The entire fact checking industry may have to hold a national day of mourning.”

Lol

 

We still have Nancy.

 

shit rcg is a fact checkers dream of job security

 

and obama
and holder
and lerner
and shulman
and reid
and our baghdad bob in the white house press room.

 

Michele Bachmann and the Truth-O-Meter



• "Scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's" were it not for "overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators." Actually, scientists told us impediments include a lack of government funding and the complexity of the disease itself. Pants on Fire.

• Of every "three dollars in food stamps for the needy, seven dollars in salaries and pensions (go to) the bureaucrats who are supposed to be taking care of the poor." Evidence shows administrative costs for the food stamp program are less than 5 percent. Pants on Fire.

• "One. That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office." We actually found more than 200. Pants on Fire.

When a question was raised about her veracity, Bachmann cited our work during one of the many Republican presidential debates. "After the debate that we had last week, PolitiFact came out and said that everything I said was true," she said at a debate in Sioux City, Iowa, on Dec. 15, 2011.

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As Dan Quayle said many moons ago, " What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is."

The world will miss the Party of the Stupid as the party is nearing its end.

 

Ahh but wasn't it fun while it lasted.