Speaking Friday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition “Road to Majority” conference in Washington, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announced that she will be running for President of the Tim Tebow fan club. It’s a joke. Get it? Because she’s actually running away from her congressional office, which she’ll surrender at the end of 2014.
DATELINE 2014: “Former Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Tim Tebow Fan Club presidential campaign staff resigned en masse today”
— Alex Pareene (@pareene) June 14, 2013
Bachmann’s speech should actually go in the Smithsonian’s collection of How Bad the GOP Has Gotten.
“We are looking at the legalization of over 30 million illegal aliens,” she said. “This is not an anti-immigrant speech. Do not walk away with that thought at all.”
This may be the most prototypical Bachmann quote ever. The statistic is wrong, overestimating the number of undocumented immigrants by two or three times. She calls this group “illegal aliens,” an offensive term Republicans are trying to train their members not to use. Then she tells you that you shouldn’t believe your own ears. Despite her lies and name-calling, she’s not being “anti-immigrant.”
“The estimate is that the average illegal alien that comes into the United States — the average age is 34 years old. The average education level is about the 10th grade,” she said. “That’s not to demean anyone who comes into the United States with a lack of education.”
Good thing she wasn’t trying to demean anyone! At least she didn’t argue that immigrants are inherently less intelligent, as conservatives have.
AP Photo/Molly Riley, File
