Every so often, a presidential candidate will say something that makes you wonder if they're really ready for prime-time. For President Obama, it was his infamous comment about bitter voters clinging to their guns, while John Kerry found that sound-bites were not his friend when he tried to explain that he voted for funding for our troops in Iraq before he voted against it. As dubious as both statements were, though, at least what they said wasn't profoundly wrong. the same can't be said of Michelle Bachmann.
Announcing her candidacy (which I could have sworn she already did last week) in her hometown of Waterloo, the Iowa native declared that she had the same spirit as fellow Waterloo native John Wayne. As it happens, though "the Duke" has Iowa roots and even a connection to Waterloo, the "John Wayne" who actually lived in Waterloo was notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
Not surprisingly, Bachmann's campaign has tried to spin this by pointing out that "the Duke" is from Iowa and Waterloo is where his parents met, but there was no gray area on this. Bachmann's quote to Fox News (hardly a bastion of the so-called "lamestream media") runs as follows:
"Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too."
Putting aside the urge to make cheap jokes about how channeling Gacy's spirit is a key part of her plan to control healthcare costs, obviously this won't change the minds of partisans on either side. Of course, as one of those partisans, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the prospect of the current President facing the queen of questionable geography in the general election so he can continue trying to get us out of the hole the GOP spent the better part of a decade digging.
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