Malaprop Michele Blunders Away

To paraphrase Calvin Trillin about George W. Bush, obliviously on she sails.

Whether Michele Bachmann will have malapropped herself into an entire book of gaffes, misstatements, flubs, slip-ups and outright lies before she gets the bad-act hook, only the GOP backroom boys know.

Her latest effort to show she is capable of being on equal footing with presidential candidates Texas Governor Rick Perry and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, had her claiming that Perry issued an order for Texas schoolgirls to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus and that the vaccination caused mental retardation.

In fact, Perry’s order never was enacted because the Texas legislature decided against it. Bachmann made her mental retardation claim after talking to a woman who said her daughter got the vaccination and then became retarded. Experts quickly said there is no evidence whatsoever linking the vaccine to mental retardation.

No attempt was made by Bachmann to check out the woman or her statement. And Bachmann’s minders either didn’t know she was going to blurt out her non-fact on Fox News and NBC’s “Today” show, or they didn’t care.

Even folks close to the campaign who spoke to the New York Times on the condition of anonymity say Bachmann is influenced by the last person she talks to.

In attempting to put the best face on Bachmann’s shoot-from-the-hip habit of making uninformed statements, the members of her staff who are paid to clean up her messes, say she is “real”, “driven” “emotional” and “impulsive”.

Great. Just the kind of president we need in this age when our biggest enemies are also real, driven, emotional, impulsive, and ignorant.

Add to that, after particularly tense situations, our Mrs. Malaprop winds up in the hospital with severe migraine attacks requiring medication (read, knockout drops).

Bachmann said recently that little girls who have a negative reaction to the papillomavirus vaccination don’t get a do-over.

Hey! Neither do we if a president makes an asshole statement and the conversation leads to a nuclear attack.

Well, I’m just saying…because Michele Bachmann hasn’t a prayer to become president or dog-catcher. But I wonder what the GOP is going to do to rid itself of its prime clown act?

Enter Sarah Palin.