Michele Bachmann Butchers American History in New Hampshire

Michele Bachmann continued her 2012 presidential flirtation today with what is quickly being called the “gaffe her ’round the Internet.” Speaking at a Manchester, New Hampshire event sponsored by the Republican Liberty Caucus, the Tea Party favorite tried to establish a rapport with her audience and with the Granite State generally over a common love of freedom. “You’re the state where the shot was heard ’round the world at Lexington and Concord,” Bachmann told the crowd. (WMUR has the video.)

Of course Lexington and Concord are about an hour’s drive south of Manchester … in Massachusetts. It’s probably not the best way to introduce oneself to the famously flinty New Hampshire-ites who are enormously self-serious about their role in the presidential nomination process.

[See editorial cartoons about the Tea Party.]

And it’s not Bachmann’s first instance of mangling American history. In January, she drew another round of titters when she waxed nostalgic about "the very founders . . . [who] worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." She added that it's "high time that we recognize the contribution of our forebears who worked tirelessly—men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished." John Quincy Adams was of course a founding son more than a founding father. And oh yeah, many of the founding fathers were slave owners.

Perhaps after Bachmann badly loses the New Hampshire primary she’ll exhort her followers: “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

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