Posted on 09/15/2011 6:50:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
On Wednesday night, Anderson Cooper took some time to address how Michele Bachmann‘s recent comment about the danger of the HPV vaccine — relaying a story about a Tampa woman who supposedly shared that her daughter had developed mental retardation following the vaccination — fits in with other misleading and incorrect comments she had made in the recent past.
Said Cooper:
Now it’s certainly not a new phenomenon for politicians to stretch the truth and manipulate facts. But Bachmann is spreading an all-out falsehood here — a dangerous falsehood at that. It’s not the first time she’s done this by any stretch of the imagination.
He then played various clips of Bachmann making inaccurate statements — such as that President Barack Obama had traveled on a taxpayer-funded, $200 million-a-day trip India with 2,000 people and that he’d released all the oil from strategic reserves — and misleading statements, like the “observation” that swine flu broke out in the 1970s under a Democratic president as well.
So. Do voters care about the truth? Does the fact that Bachmann has slipped in the polls recently have anything to do with these type of statements? To answer these questions, Cooper brought on Bachmann’s former Chief of Staff, Ron Carey, who offered a fairly fascinating theory for why Bachmann has a tendency to share and perpetuate erroneous statements:
Well, Michele is very impulsive from a personality standpoint and, to her credit, she reads an awful lot of information, but sometimes I’m afraid that she reads maybe 80 or 90 percent and leaves out or forgets the ten or 20 percent that can change the outcome, so her impulsive nature coupled with the fact that she sometimes doesn’t digest information as carefully as she should leads to these kinds of impulsive statements that sometimes are just off the mark enough that it makes her into more of a provocative, controversial figure.
He continued:
One of the challenges I’ve found with working with Michele, and it’s consistent with other people who have worked with her, is the fact that she doesn’t use her staff well. She’s pretty much independent and does her own research. She’ll be out there on the stump, preparing her remarks and speaking off the cuff with no staff intervention or involvement whatsoever, so it’s really difficult to prep her and help her kind of back-check before she goes out speaking because she will be out there speaking and you’ll say, “Where did this come from?” and it’s something that she maybe heard on TV.
CNN political analyst David Gergen then shared his theory on what her statements have to do with her views on science.
Take a look, via CNN:
At the very least she's extremely irresponsible considering the seriousness of the accusation. If she didn't know the woman's comment was preposterous, then she's ignorant. If she knew the woman's comment was preposterous, then she's a liar.
All scenarios are bad for her.
Keep on lappin’
Whatever man, attacking Anderson Cooper may be fun, but it won’t make the story go away.
at least I've learned to recognize the tactic.
The difference between the examples you cite and this, is that those examples were, even though true, pretty immaterial to whether those candidates could perform in their job. This issue clearly would be material.
Yep, stuck between being viewed as ignorant or inaccurate is not the place you want to be as a candidate. Worse, in my personal opinion, is that no matter which one is true, she was uncritical in either scenario, and that is exactly the kind of thinking that I don’t want in a leader.
whether or not she knows elvis's birthplace or her opinion of government mandated vaccinations are not important to me in view of her position on the roll of government vs the other big government friendly front runners.
Priorities I guess.
Put down the bong.
Right NOW our choices are practical conservatives (Perry and Cain), RINOs (Mutt and JonBoy), impulsive conservative (Bachmann), Moonbeam Martian and a couple of wannabes. Then we have the holdout COY conservative.
Bachmann’s impulsiveness is not as a conservative, its IMPULSIVE as in “I didn’t know that before I opened my mouth” or WORSE. Anyone looking at the race realistically, knows Bachmann is a long shot, a very long shot that is getting longer. With her getting impusively cranked up about Gardisil OPT-IN/OPT-OUT, looks like she is angling for Mutt’s VP.
If by “my agenda” you mean getting a Republican candidate who gets their facts straight before they get in front of a microphone, then guilty as charged. Credibility matters to most voters, I think.
Bachmann could be the purest Conservative in the race, but if she can’t sell herself as a candidate, I’ll take a pass. Any salesman will tell you, you need at least the appearance of credibility if you are going to be successful.
And the 'common sense' candidate gets nominated/elected, and the country keep sliding further into crapper.
But go ahead & let the media dictate who's worthy of your vote.
“But go ahead & let the media dictate who’s worthy of your vote.”
Where the hell do you get that from? Just because I don’t think Bachmann has a snowball’s chance in hell means I am some media-following zombie?
I doubt that attitude is going to win many people over to your point of view. “Think like me or you’re brainwashed!”.... not a good campaign strategy.
Bachmann is 'no longer credible' in the same way Palin isn't credible, in the same way Reagan wasn't credible (at least until just before he won in a landslide). Because that is the establishment narrative.
She is not dishonest, she isn't stupid. By her words (aside from a few mis-statments among thousands of words spoken) and deeds as a congresswoman she is deserving of serious consideration.
Except for the opinions of certain pundits and reporters, whos motives are certainly suspect, you have no basis for asserting that she is anything other than a capable, principled constitutionally grounded candidate.
IMO I thought thats what we conservatives wanted.
How? She said something inflammatory that has no visible basis in the truth. How does pointing that out equate to sexism?
One physician's assistant reported that a female patient "died of a blood clot three hours after getting the Gardasil vaccine." Two other reports, on girls 12 and 19, reported deaths relating to heart problems and/or blood clotting.
Of the 1,637 adverse reactions to Gardasil reported to the FDA since the drug was on the market, there were 371 serious reactions. Of the 42 women who received the vaccine while pregnant, 18 experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous abortion to fetal abnormalities.
However, 1367 adverse reactions out of million of doses given is a really small percentage. You would get a higher negative reaction rate from aspirin, and much higher from penicillin.
You said something about ‘no basis in truth’?
Yes I did. Nothing you posted provides a basis to support her claim about this woman's daughter. Nothing you posted even supports a claim that Gardasil was responsible for the events you listed - it might infer a correlation, but does not provide evidence to support that inference. Without more evidence, she was irresponsible to make an unsubstantiated claim. But regardless, I still don't see how this has anything to do with sexism.
If you do not believe that what I posted supported Bachmann’s claim then there’s really no point in continuing. Your mind is obviously made up.
Enough reason to cause concern, I would think.
Enough reason to cause concern, I would think.
It has been in wide use for 5 years now, with millions of doses given - if the kind of adverse reactions you posted were common, it should be easy to find thousands and thousands of examples by now, wouldn't you think?
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