On having to defend Michele Bachmann. Don't Make Me Do This Again.

The latest Michele Bachmann controversy revolves around the first words of a speech she made inside a tent at an outdoor Christian meeting in Iowa.  It had been raining and the first words out of her mouth were, "Who likes wet people?"  Someone leaning to the left either misheard or deliberately chose to present it in a doctored YouTube video as "Who likes white people?"  Guess what happened then?  Yesiree, it went viral.

The clip making its rounds on Wonkette and other sites left out her next sentence, which was, "Yeah, that's right.  Because we have the God of the winds and the rain, don't we?"  On the un-doctored video I watched she clearly says "wet people".  Clear as a bell.

I hate that I have to defend someone who is so clearly against all that I stand for, but I'm going to do it because, as a long time liberal, I know what comes of any attempt at hanky-panky at our end.  We get trounced for it and it never goes away.  But beyond that, phony attacks are their game, not ours.  Or I should say, mine.  I'll never be a part of that idiocy.  There is enough honest ammunition against Michele Bachmann without resorting to lies.

 This is the true version of her remarks.

And this is the doctored version.  (I'm still hearing "wet" instead of "white" but many people swear she's saying "white people".  Judge for yourself.) 

If you want to see Michele Bachmann at her dangerous worst, watch her here as she defends South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for making sure her state remains a Right-to-Work state.  Bachmann couches it in terms of "Pro-growth" but what she's saying here is that she wants to see every state become an anti-union, low wage state.  She says, "A right-to-work state is a good thing", and she's saying it clear enough for everyone to get the message.

In that same speech there's no doubt about her words as she threatens to take out both the National Labor Relations Board and the Environmental Protection Agency if she becomes president.  This from Politico:

“Our president decided to allow the National Labor Relations Board to try to stop what Boeing is doing in South Carolina,” said Haley, referring to the NLRB’s complaint that Boeing moved the plant from Washington state to South Carolina to punish union workers, in violation of law. “It’s the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen. If you were president — knowing he is saying he can’t do anything because it’s an independent agency, what would you do?”
“Why thank you for asking that question,” Bachmann said, inviting the crowd to applaud Haley and promising she would take her calls if elected president. “If the NLRB would also be continuing their current stance, they may not last very long. Once they see what I do to the EPA, they may shape up.”

(For the record, I'm not at all convinced the NLRB made the right decision about Boeing's move after the fact -- the plant has already been built; Americans are already working in those jobs -- but I am convinced that Boeing decided on South Carolina because of it's lax labor laws.)

  If the polls weren't showing this ridiculous excuse for a candidate as a Republican front runner it would be easy to dismiss all that she says.  Nearly every day it's something new and attention-getting. (This weekend it was God trying to get our attention about the deficit by sending us earthquakes and hurricanes.)  The times are such that we surely need to pay attention to what this woman who would be president has to say, but we don't need to make it up as we go along.
 
I mean, literally, we don't need to.