After Bachmann's bizarre presidential campaign crashed and burned in a conflagration rivaling the Hindenburg disaster, there has been very little discussion in the mainstream media about how so flawed a politician could become a serious candidate for the highest office in the country. Sadly, there is no shortage of money for the mass production of lies that boost god-awful politicians like Bachmann.
Politico's Ben Smith via Think Progress:
Impressed by the effectiveness of the liberal Center for American Progress, a group of conservative journalists and operatives are preparing to engage in their own sincerest form of flattery — launching an advocacy group with a similar name and mission but very different target.
Part assault on CAP and part homage, the Center for American Freedom’s goal is to wage a well-funded assault on the Obama White House and the liberal domination of partisan online media.
And who better to edit the Koch-funded lie-factory than this weasle-faced, right-wing lickspittle liar:
Based in Washington, it will have an annual budget of “several million dollars,” according to its chairman, Michael Goldfarb, and will house a new conservative online news outlet, the Washington Free Beacon, edited by former Weekly Standard writer Matthew Continetti.
Back in 2009 or 2010, Matthew Continetti begged me for an interview about Michele Bachmann. Since Dump Bachmann is a non-partisan blog, I used to talk to anyone regardless of their party affiliation or political philosophy. After my experience with Continetti, I no longer talk to right-wing reporters. They just make shit up.
I met Continetti at a local coffee shop for a long interview in which I told him about the many skeletons in Bachmann's closet including Bradlee Dean and very likely Frank Vennes.
In 2011, Continetti wrote a sycophantic profile of Bachmann in the Weekly Standard contained a fact-free attack on this blog. This is a DB re-post from June 25, 2011:
When are reporters going to get it right about Michele Bachmann?
A few days ago, there was the controversy over Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi's profile of Bachmann. Now, we have another flawed article about Bachmann from Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard. I just want to focus on what Continetti wrote about Dump Bachmann (on pg. 3):
“People saw that something was changing in our country,” Bachmann said. “For the first time a state supreme court, in Massachusetts, had ordered its legislature to pass a law conforming with the views of those who sat on the court.” Bachmann’s amendment never passed the legislature. But it did make her more prominent and controversial. Local columnists ridiculed her. There were calls for a boycott of Stillwater businesses. A group of Democratic activists started the “Dump Bachmann” blog. The site became the place where one could find every last Bachmann speech, letter, and article—even pictures of her car.
Things got a little weird. In April 2005, when gay rights activists rallied in front of the state capitol in St. Paul, a local photographer captured Bachmann as she seemed to be peering through some bushes at the protesters. Bachmann and those with her said she was sitting down after standing for awhile in high heels. Around the same time, Bachmann filed a report with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in which she said that two women had accosted her in the ladies’ room of a local community center after a meeting on the same-sex marriage amendment. As the anti-Bachmann bloggers began to track her closely, she removed her home address and telephone number from the state senate directory. She requested security protection.
Now, the facts:
The Dump Bachmann blog was started by Eva Young, who was at the time a Republican who attended GOP caucuses. The Dump Bachmann blog is non-partisan blog. We have interviewed candidates from the DFL, GOP and Independence parties. This blog has criticized Democrats such as Amy Klobuchar for instance for supporting MIchele Bachmann's billion dollar bridge boondoggle.
There are no pictures of Bachmann's car on this blog. We have been very respectful of Bachmann's privacy. We have not posted her address or private phone number.
This blog has always condemned any threat to Bachmann's safety and security - we condemned the recent "glitter-bombing" of Bachman, for instance. We also condemned the vandalism of her home and we still call for re-opening the investigation into that unsolved crime.
What is really annoying about this is Matthew Continetti requested an interview with me a few years back (I think it was August, 2009). He interviewed me for about an hour at a coffee shop on Nicollet Avenue. I'm sure he still has my contact info. I don't remember much about what I said, I do remember telling him about Michele Bachmann & Bradlee Dean. I'm pretty certain I told him The Weekly Standard did a profile of Bradlee Dean.
But let's take a look at Continetti's assertion that Bachmann was not hiding behind the bushes at OutFront Minnesota's 2005 JustFair Lobby Day rally. The blog that posted the pictures, "Paradise is Where I am" is no longer on the web, but still exists on the Wayback Machine.
This is the sequence of pictures from the blog (click twice to make the pictures bigger):
Michele Bachmann is a candidate for freekin' President of the United States of America... c'mon reporters and editors, fact-check your articles.
Hopefully, editors will review the way they covered Bachmann and start performing due diligence for the citizens of the United States - but I don't have any hope that anything will change.
NOTE TO READERS: Now that Bachmann has returned to her ex-home state as a failed candidate for POTUS, there will likely be less posting here until the Vennes trial in May and if Bachmann decides to run again for her no-show job in Congress. In the meantime, please read our book "The Madness of Michele Bachmann". I also recommend Abe Sauer's review of our book in The Awl and this week's City Pages cover article by Andy Mannix (illustrated by me) for additional insights into the now defunct Bachmann campaign.
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