Defeating Michele Bachmann

In one of the strangest political interviews in recent memory, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Chris Matthews on “Hardball” that she believed Barrack Obama might have “anti-American views,” and called on the media to investigate whether Congressional members also hold anti-American views. If those comments weren’t disturbing enough, Bachmann appeared to take a barb at college students when Matthews asked her what geographic regions in America are anti-American: “I think it’s people who don't like America, who detest America. And on college campuses, a Ward Churchill, another college campus, a Bill Ayers, you find people who hate America,” she articulated.

Although we fail to discern exactly what Bachmann meant, we call on University of Minnesota students to donate money to her DFL opponent Elwyn Tinklenberg — who has received roughly $800,000 in donations from across the nation since Bachmann made the comments Sunday — or Aubrey Immelman, the Republican runner-up in the primaries who, because Bachmann’s comments “dishonored her office,” is rejuvenating his campaign with the explicit purpose of derailing the sixth district incumbent.

Bachmann recently asserted that Matthews “laid a trap” for her. “I did not say that Barack Obama is anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American,” the Star Tribune reported her saying in St. Cloud as YouTube videos of the interview circulated the Internet. Let’s show Bachmann — who voted against the same Pell grant increases in 2007 that President George W. Bush signed into law — that if she’s going to continue voicing her politically and intellectually backward vitriol, it’s not going to be on behalf of Minnesota.