The fact that’s she appears to be crazy may not be enough to sink her campaign, but the fact that Michele Bachmann is a really bad liar is probably a serious problem.
Michele Bachmann, on the campaign trail today, offered what seems to be a new explanation for her previous work as a lawyer for the Internal Revenue Service, something that has drawn some ire from the right.
Her explanation: She worked for the IRS as a kind of secret anti-tax mole whose mission was to get to know the place in order to better undermine it later. As she put it: “The first rule of war is `know your enemy.’”
This explanation seems a bit at odds with descriptions of the episode she’s given on previous occasions, when she’s said her anti-tax fervor was the result of her work for the IRS. This version on the trail explains her work for the IRS — which spanned four years, from 1988-1992 — in a way that will be more acceptable to hard-core anti-tax conservatives.
Candidates forget that almost everything they say is captured on video tape. If you have a tendency to exaggerate, it’s going to cost you. If you want to contradict yourself and tell outright lies, it’s going to sink you.
So basically we can say that she was for taxes before she was against them.
Or, we can just call her what she is. A liar.
IOKBYAR….it’ll be OK because she’s a republican, a woman, and a caucasian. In other words, she has a free pass to say whatever she wants without further dip in poll numbers.
Still a colossal waste of flesh, blood, and tissue
Exactly. It’s like like she’s algore for Christ’s sake.
< snark >
Yes, but you and I both know that in the right wing brain, flip-flopping is a much worse offense than lying.
Feh. Only when a Democrat does it. And only when the flip-flop can’t be portrayed as a lie. If a flip-flop can be portrayed as a lie, the lie is worse. If it can’t, the flip-flop is worse. And neither are sins if the right-winger in question doesn’t want them to be.
Right-wingers care little about consistency. They care about winning and to some degree purity. That’s about it.
I disagree. I think by and large the Republican party prefers strength of conviction over honesty.
Recently Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker did a profile of her and he found some of the people she used to work with at the IRS. I think they said something like half of the time she was working there, she was on maternity leave. They resented her because they’s always be finishing her work when she would suddenly go out on leave again and again. Cushy government job with great maternity benefits. This seems to be a trend for her. Seems like every dime she ever made came from some sort of Gub’mint agency or program. The tales from her publicly funded
religiousahem secular charter school that she had to disassociate herself with are interesting as well.Of course Matt Taibbi did a similar piece in Rolling Stone in case anyone missed it. It’s also very informative.