CNN's Warm Welcome to Bachmann's Candidacy: 'Firebrand,' Gaffe-Prone, 'Democrats' Favorite Candidate,' 'Fringe'
Tea Party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) declared her candidacy for president Monday, and CNN provided plenty of snarky commentary with which to welcome her. The network repeatedly took aim at her past gaffes and suggested that she has little chance to win the Republican nomination for president.
In addition, CNN's Anderson Cooper led his regular news cast for two nights in a row touting the congresswoman's "hypocrisy" in championing small government while benefitting from a family farm and her husband's counseling clinic, both of which received federal funds – although Cooper himself admitted the total amount was "relatively small."
[Video below.]
Newsroom anchor Kyra Phillips helped set the stage for Bachmann's announcement Monday by predicting the race was about to get "probably a lot more angry." Anchor Randi Kaye provided some snarky jabs of her own later on Monday afternoon, noting that Bachmann "doesn't much like government, but wants to be president."
Monday night, former Democrat governor of New York Eliot Spitzer called Bachmann a "Tea Party firebrand prone to making embarrassing gaffes," adding that she was a "fringe candidate" and "the Democrats' favorite candidate." The next morning, American Morning co-host Kiran Chetry told Bachmann she was "prone to misstatements" and asked her if she had intentionally made false statements in the past.
Later on Tuesday, CNN's Jessica Yellin asked political analyst Gloria Borger if Bachmann being nominated as the Republican candidate would be a gift to Democrats.
Below is a compilation of CNN's bias against Congresswoman Bachmann:
CNN
NEWSROOM
6/27/11
9:00 a.m. EDT
KYRA PHILLIPS: And one hour from now, the presidential race gets more interesting and probably a lot more angry. Michele Bachmann, the powerful voice behind taxpayer frustration and Tea Party ideals, launches her bid in the critical state of Iowa.
CNN
NEWSROOM
6/27/11
1:04 p.m. EDT
RANDI KAYE: Our "Sound Effect" today comes from a three-term member of Congress who doesn't much like government, but wants to be president. Michele Bachmann today announced her 2012 campaign not in Minnesota where she represents the 6th district, but in Iowa, where she was born – specifically, Waterloo, Iowa. Here a lawmaker beloved by the Tea Party pays her respects to the Founders while spurning the State of the Union.
CNN
IN THE ARENA
6/27/11
8:40 p.m. EDT
ELIOT SPITZER: She's best known as a Tea Party firebrand prone to making embarrassing gaffes. Now Representative Michele Bachmann is officially a candidate for president. Democrats privately snicker at the idea of Bachmann as the Republican nominee in 2012.
(...)
SPITZER: But isn't she just kind of the fringe candidate, kind of like Ron Paul last time, who gets the 15-20 percent of the real angry outsiders, but she'll never be able to expand and become sort of the mainstream candidate?
(...)
SPITZER: Alright Laura, now I think we could agree she would be the Democrats' favorite candidate, because inconceivable she could win the presidency, but isn't she also Mitt Romney's favorite opponent? Doesn't she make him look centrist, reasonable, and staid?
CNN
AMERICAN MORNING
6/28/11
6:33 a.m. EDT
KIRAN CHETRY: (to Rep. Bachmann) So you officially announced yesterday. And you know, really there are two story lines about you out there right now. One is that you shot on to the national stage. You have a lot of enthusiastic supporters especially in the Tea Party.
The other, though, is that you're prone to misstatements and PolitiFact.com, which is a Pulitzer Price winning fact-checking web site examined 26 statements that you made and they found only one to be fully true and 18 to be false. Several of them relating to your criticism of President Obama. Did you mean to make false statements intentionally or were you just misspeaking?
CNN
NEWSROOM
6/28/11
10:28 a.m. EDT
KYRA PHILLIPS: First question, guys. Michele Bachmann continuing to re-write history. Recently, the Revolutionary War started in New Hampshire. This morning, John Quincy – or John Quincy Adams rather, one of our Founding Fathers. So, is candidate Bachmann ready to stand up for all presidential scrutiny?
CNN
JOHN KING, USA
6/28/11
7:47 p.m. EDT
JESSICA YELLIN: Gloria, do you that Democrats would view a Bachmann nomination as a secret gift?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN senior political analyst: Yeah. I think they would. Because the thing about Michele Bachmann that we've seen in these first few days on the campaign trail is that she's undisciplined, she has said a lot of things and misspoken, and she has to take them back, her record is thinner than a lot of people thought, and if Republicans say that the problem with Barack Obama is that he didn't have enough experience to be President of the United States, then running a candidate with not a lot of experience is probably a problem for the Republican talking points, I would think.
- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center.
