Bachmann Blasts Arab Spring Movement; Links Obama to Fall of Shah

American history is not the only subject that confuses GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. The routinely revisionist congresswoman from Minnesota still cannot quite get her brain around the pro-democracy Middle East freedom movement, known as the Arab Spring.

Despite dictators being toppled in Tunesia, Egypt and Libya (Iraq, as well, albeit at a questionable cost in American lives and treasure), Bachmann condemned the Arab Spring, blaming President Obama for the popular uprisings, led by essentially enslaved peoples who seek the same freedoms enjoyed in Europe, North America and Israel.

"You want to know why we have an Arab Spring? Barack Obama has laid the table for an Arab Spring by demonstrating weakness from the United States of America," Bachmann said at a fundraiser today. 

"The number one duty of the President is to be the commander-in-chief," she told supporters at Troutman's barbecue joint in Concord, N.C. 

It was not the first time Bachmann butchered the facts about the Arab Spring, but she did meander into new territory when she sought to link ex-President Jimmy Carter's handling of the Islamic uprising in Iran in the late 1970s to Obama's handling of the Arab revolutions, according to MSNBC, which broke the story.

(MSNBC has the video of Bachmann's remarks here).

Bachmann further demonstrated that she has scant understanding of the widely accepted and long-held baseline negotiating point between Israel and the Palestinians -- that talks begin with both sides agreeing to the pre-1967 War border and move toward realistic land swaps from there.   

"We saw him put a lot of daylight between our relationship with our ally Israel  and when he called upon Israel to retreat to its indefensible 1967 borders. Don't think that message wasn't lost on Israel's 26 indefensible neighbors," Bachmann said.

Her comments came a week after Obama was criticized for one of the most pro-Israel addresses to the United Nations by a U.S. President.

On the upside, it is worth noting that Bachmann made the comments in Concord, North Carolina, so it could have been worse -- she could have suggested the American Revolution began there, as she did when she was in New Hampshire, whose capital is Concord.

All of Massachusetts can rejoice.

Finally Figuring Out Ron Paul is a Real Threat in GOP Race

Suddenly Ron Paul does not look like an outlier anymore.

With an elbows-out cowboy frontrunner and a bombastic anti-government congresswoman who tends to muddle history trailed mainly by boilerplate pro-life hyper-conservatives at the rear, Paul finds himself sharing a stage with opponents who, on many issues, sound a lot him.

The ob/gyn physician from Texas is poised to make mischief in the Republican race. And the mainstream media is finally catching on.

Paul has a low-budget, campaign dependent on volunteer loyalty and well-timed "money-bombs" that net him more than a $1 million-a-pop. Odds are his strategy will see him last through every single Republican caucus and primary.

This week's Gallup poll left little doubt that Gov. Rick Perry is out front with a low double-digit lead over the previously presumed leader in the GOP field, Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of his adopted Massachusetts.

Gallop confirms what a Rasmussen poll taken days after the Iowa Straw Poll and Perry's entry into the race at a conservative bloggers summit in South Carolina: The Texan is the leader going into the traditional Labor Day start for the caucus and primary season.

But survey after survey also consistently indicate Paul has an established base of support that is at least as loyal as the best candidates in the field.

Among the evidence, Paul is the only announced candidate for the GOP nomination whose favorable rating tops his unfavorable rating, according to an AP/IPSOS poll out today.

Paul also polled solidly with Romney and Bachmann in the second tier of candidates who draw support from Republicans who identify closely with the Tea Party, More eye-catching, the same Gallup survey numbers released today have him at a strong third-place ceding among mainstream Republican voters. 

All eyes are on Romney, the languishing would-be establishment candidate, and Bachmann, the previous flavor-of-the-month who is wonderinging when her support will bottom out. Bachmann was at 13% in the Rasmussen poll before dropping to 10% in the Gallup survey.

If the Minnesota congresswoman fades, people will likely discover many Bachmann voters are turned off by Perry and may find a candidate like Paul more appealing. Romney probably can best help Paul by going on the attack against Perry and expose weaknesses and maybe provoke some gaffs.

There are also the backers of the bottom-dwellers to consider. If they cannot hang with the pack, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Gingrich all have supporters who will be looking for a new home.

Paul, for now a sort of protest candidate in a field of protest candidates, has to hold his grown and not lose any of his backers to Perry. If he holds, the feisty lawmaker could find his unwavering libertarian camp a home for the forthcoming pool of available Republican primary and caucus voters.

Bachmann Becomes Punching Bag of Mainstream Republicans

Is winning the pay-to-play Ames Straw Poll worth anything at all?

That has to be a question GOP Rep. Michele Bachman is asking tonight as she finds herself a target of barbs from everyone from leading GOP political consultants, like Mike Murphy, to the bible of mainstream Republicans, The Wall Street Journal.

If the GOP aristocracy gets its way, Bachmann will cede her flavor-of-the-month status to the sixth-place finisher in the straw poll, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who shunned the unscientific vote in Iowa and instead announced his candidacy in a bigger Southern State (not that it mattered one bit based on his reception by Republicans in Iowa the past two days).

"I think Michele Bachmann is totally unelectable. ... I think Rick Perry is going to take her out," said Murphy, a former advisor to GOP heavyweights like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.    

Murphy warned on MSNBC today of "a McGovern moment" that "gives (President) Obama the election" by nominating a hardcore social conservative, like Bachmann, who plays to Tea Party and evangelical base Republicans  -- the so-called T-vangelicals. 

"As a pragmatic right wing consultant type who wants to win the election, I am concerned," Murphy said.

The Wall Street Journal, which turned on the Tea Party when it's members in Congress, including Bachmann, were willing to default on the federal debt rather than reach a deal with Obama, hit the Minnesota lawmaker over her lack of experience.

"Americans are already living with the consequences of electing a President who sounded good but had achieved little as a legislator and had no executive experience. Mrs. Bachmann will have to persuade voters she isn't the conservative version of Mr. Obama," The Wall Street Journal opined today.

Add GOP talk show host Joe Scarborough, Republican media consultant Alex Castellanos and right-wing blogger Erick Erickson of RedState.com to a growing list of conservatives who fear Bachmann cannot win.

At this rate Obama and the Democrats can sit back and just watch the GOP hierarchy duke it out with the rank-and-file T-vangelicals while focusing on Romney, who still looks to be the likely GOP nominee once the family feud is decided.

As for the Ames Straw Poll, only one candidate to win the hugely unscientific vote since its inception in 1979, has gone on to win the presidency: George W. Bush. So history, rather than Republican hysteria, may prove to be Bachmann's demise.

The Tea Party is the Big Winner at the Ames Straw Poll

Whether you take your tea sweet or unsugared, there was plenty served up at the Ames Straw poll, where, with so many variables in play, the biggest winner in the unscientific tally was really the Tea Party.

Rep. Michele Bachmann is taking her victory lap today after edging out Rep. Ron Paul to finish first in the Ames Straw Poll, but for Tim Pawlenty the race is over.

The conservative anti-government voters who form the core of the Tea Party essentially delivered a win yesterday for not one, but two candidates: Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Paul (R-Tex.), the latter with a close second-place finish. Bachmann and Paul made a strong connection with Tea Party voters, while Pawlenty did not.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry also is believed to have picked up some Tea Party backing in a write-in campaign that gave him more votes than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose name was on the ballot, though he did not formally participate in the straw poll.

"Rick Perry won the straw poll at an event I was at. He has a lot more Tea Party support than many believe," Tweeted Tea Party Nation Chairman Judson Phillips.

Those results for Bachmann, Paul and Perry are a pretty strong indication the Tea Party is highly energized and easy to organize, even as polls show it is increasingly unpopular with most Americans. The Tea Party vote turns out, and the loosely held organization will be a deciding factor -- perhaps the deciding factor -- in the GOP nomination process.

It is not worth arguing one way or the other about Pawlenty's distant third-place finish. The former Minnesota Gov. was without a message (especially within the super-charged Tea Party and evangelical voters) and remained where he was going into the straw poll -- atop a second tier of candidates, at best. It was enough of a sign for him to quit the race.

Bachmann received twice as many votes as Pawlenty, and overnight he went from spinning his third-place finish as a fresh start for his campaign to admitting he had as much traction as a bald tire in a blizzard.

Pawlenty's problem was not simply a weak finish in a straw vote that is bought by the candidates with a $30 ticket, food and drink and lots of live (mostly country) music. He already had been overtaken by the new kid on the block, the governor of Texas, who has early momentum and is an instant darling of the main stream media and another option for the Tea Party voters.

Perry brings a plain-talking, slash-first-and-ask-questions-later approach that almost sounds like a common-sense way to solve the nation's problems. He drew on an angry optimism to attack President Obama and reach out to Tea Party and evangelical voters with his presidential campaign announcement speech yesterday half a country away in Charleston, S.C.

"The fact is for nearly three years, President Obama has been downgrading American jobs, he's been downgrading our standing in the world, he's been downgrading our financial stability, he's been downgrading our confidence, and downgrading the hope for a better future for our children," Perry declared.

The takeway for the Obama campaign may be Republican field is telegraphing the election's biting partisan lines of attack, barring a spectacular unforeseen event or the economy getting even worse for President Obama. The jabs will be loaded with Tea Party rhetoric.

Not all the titans of the Tea Party emerged unscathed. One Tea Party darling may be steeped in a downward spiral: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's pre-game boom was a post-game bust.

Palin stole some of the limelight by showing up in Iowa this weekend, but Mama Grizzly failed to make a blip in the straw poll (She was not on the ballot, but there were some expectations that she would make a showing as a write-in candidate). The base Republicans have decided she is not running.

The wild card Tea Party player will continue to be Paul, the man that the mainstream media cannot seem to mention without adding, "... but conventional wisdom is that he cannot win the nomination." Now the conventional wisdom is Bachmann is a time bomb because she cannot win over independent voters.

The problem with conventional wisdom is that this is not a conventional primary season. This is the Tea Party's first run in a presidential election and its members are prone to the unconventional.

It seems almost counterintuitive in this climate to hear pundits arguing that the only reason Paul had a strong finish in Ames was because his followers are so loyal and well-organized. This 2012 GOP primary landscape is new ground, and the Tea Party is set to stake its claim to some of its available acreage.

You Would Think Bachmann Would Know the Adams Family

Rep. Michelle Bachmann is having a tough time sticking to the script in her bid for the Republican nomination for President.

A day after she confused the actor John Wayne with the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the Minnesota Republican was at it again, this time mixing up John Quincy Adams with his father John Adams.

The newly crowned queen of the Tea Party made the gaff when she defended to ABC's George Stephanopoulos her statement that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery.

"Well if you look at one of our Founding Fathers, John Quincy Adams, that’s absolutely true. He was a very young boy when he was with his father serving essentially as his father’s secretary. He tirelessly worked throughout his life to make sure that we did in fact one day eradicate slavery," Bachmann said.

Stephanopoulos responded, "He wasn’t one of the Founding Fathers – he was a President, he was a Secretary of State, he was a member of Congress, you’re right he did work to end slavery decades later. But so you are standing by this comment that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery?"

Bachmann retorted, "Well, John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved."

This is at least the second time Bachmann flubbed an issue related to the Revolutionary War era. The first coming when she suggested the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired in New Hampshire as opposed to Massachusetts, where of course it was fired.

But Bachmann is not the only Tea Party celebrity who does not know her Revolutionary war-era history. The woman Bachmann deposed as the queen of the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, recently suggested that Paul Revere in his historic ride to warn that "the British are coming" did so to warn the British.

Is it too much to ask that people associated with something called the Tea Party actually know what was going on during the era of the actual Boston Tea Party?