Oct 20, 2008 10:41 pm US/Central
'Anti-American' Controversy Not Bachmann's First
(WCCO)
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Despite that statement, the congresswoman is now under fire from Democrats and some Republicans. Now there is a wave of campaign money that could threaten her re-election, but Bachmann is no stranger to surviving controversy.
Michele Bachmann
Last week U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann told MSNBC that presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama may have anti-American views; the Republican lawmaker quickly reversed herself on WCCO Sunday Morning.
"I'm not saying that his views are anti-American. That was a misreading of what I said," Bachmann told Esme Murphy.
Despite that statement, the congresswoman is now under fire from Democrats and some Republicans. Now there is a wave of campaign money that could threaten her re-election, but Bachmann is no stranger to surviving controversy.
Bachmann's latest comments caught many by surprise, even drawing a rebuke from Republican former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"This business, for example the congressman from Minnesota who's going around saying lets examine all congressmen to see who is pro-America or not pro-America. We have got to stop this kind of nonsense," Powell said on Sunday.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced Bachmann during a trip to Minnesota on Monday. She described Bachmann's remarks as a smear against Americans with honest disagreements.
"So what do they do? They question the patriotism of others. I think that a statement of the kind that congresswoman Bachmann made dishonors the position she holds, and discredits her as a person," Democrat Pelosi.
Since taking office two years ago, Bachmann has raised her national profile as a reliable conservative willing to say what others won't. However, controversy is nothing new to the tough talking former state senator.
Bachmann raised eyebrows soon after taking office, with an over-exuberant, long embrace of President Bush. She told a St. Cloud newspaper she saw a top-secret map giving part of Iraq to neighboring Iran, which would use it for terrorist training. And she led the Minnesota opposition to gay marriage, prompting her half-sister to publicly declare her own homosexuality.
Bachmann's Democratic opponent raised nearly a million dollars in the 72 hours following her remarks, which he calls out-of-the-mainstream, but not out of the ordinary.
"This is not somehow an anomaly, something that's unusual for her. This is the kind of politics that she has practiced for so much of her career. And that's why it is so hard now for her to back off," said Democratic candidate Elwyn Tinklenberg.
On Monday, Bachmann said she was too busy campaigning to talk about the controversy. But in an e-mail her spokesperson said the congresswoman "asked legitimate questions that Minnesotans have been asking."
She said Obama doesn't have a long record "so we have to look for other ways to discern the substance behind his pretty platitudes."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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