The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is fact-checking some of the statements made by 2012 GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who is constantly critiqued for playing fast and loose with facts. Her most recent gaffe involves mixing up legendary actor John Wayne and infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy when referring to the Iowan natives.
We're less interested in her pop-cultural gaffes than her political ones, and Kessler methodically highlights the numerous "mistakes" that Bachmann makes when citing statistics and attributing comments to President Obama, which are largely taken out of context and sometimes completely made up. Check out an excerpt of Kessler's findings below. It seems that the conservative politician takes a liberal approach to facts. What do you think?
"And we can't afford four more years of a foreign policy with a president who leads from behind and who doesn't stand up for our friends like Israel, and who too often fails to stand against our enemies." —Michele Bachmann (announcement speech, June 27, Waterloo, Iowa)
Bachmann barely touched on foreign policy in her speech, and she does not really explain her comment on Israel. Bachmann has mischaracterized Obama's position on Israel in the past. Obama has certainly had tensions with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over the strategy for peace talks with the Palestinians, but at the same time, both countries say that security and military ties have never been closer.
"In February 2009, President Obama was very confident that his economic policies would turn the country around within a year.
He said, and I quote, 'A year from now, I think people are going to see that we're starting to make some progress. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition.' Well, Mr. President, your policies haven't worked. Spending our way out of the recession hasn't worked. And so Mr. President, we take you at your word."
This quote is from an interview that President Obama had with NBC News about two weeks after taking office. But Bachmann leaves out a few crucial words that undercut her claim that he was "very confident" that his policies would turn around the country "within a year."
Here's is Obama's full statement, with the missing words in bold: "A year from now, I think people are going to see that we're starting to make some progress, but there is still going to be some pain out there. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition."
Source: the Washington Post.
Read more of Kessler's findings at the Washington Post.
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