How Dare You Ask Me About My Own Words!

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


So Michele Bachmann (R–Crazytown) gave a speech at CPAC this weekend in which she (a) slammed President Obama over his scandalous mishandling of Benghazi, and (b) slammed him again for his lavish White House lifestyle, including his use of a full-time dog walker. CNN’s Dana Bash trekked over to the Capitol to get a comment. Here’s how it went:

Bash: You talked about the excesses that he’s engaged in, the fact that he has a dog walker, which is not true.

Bachmann: The big point of my speech was about Benghazi….

[Crosstalk plus some outraged histrionics about Obama’s bungled response to Benghazi.]

Bash: But if you want to focus on that, why bring up the other things?

Bachmann, in indignant tones:  You want to talk about dog handlers and there’s four Americans that were killed?

Bash: But congresswoman, you’re the one who brought it up!

Isn’t that great? How dare you ask me about stuff that I myself brought up in the first place? That’s our Michele!

For what it’s worth, Glenn Kessler gave Bachmann a grand total of eight Pinocchios for her CPAC address, which was only 16 minutes long. That’s because (a) he only examined two of her claims, and (b) four Pinocchios is the most he’s allowed to hand out. “There really aren’t enough Pinocchios for such misleading use of statistics in a major speech,” he sighed about her food stamp whopper.

STANDARD REMINDER: Bachmann was briefly considered a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Just in case anyone has forgotten that.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate