Michele Bachmann Jumps the Shark by Suggesting HPV Vaccine Can Cause "Mental Retardation"

RUSH: Perry goofed up by using an executive order on the Gardasil -- there's no question he goofed up on it -- instead of taking it to the Texas legislature. He's admitted that over and over again. I think one of the reasons that Perry gets tired is that he had all the questions. He had to answer every question three or four times last night, and he did it smiling. I tell you, I would have probably (by the third or fourth time they came at me on this) have said, "What more do you need to hear on this? What more do you want to know? There was an opt-out! If anybody didn't want to take it, they didn't have to." There was an opt out. So the next time, I'm gonna have to issue another warning: "Not only don't go bother with this Social Security Ponzi scheme stuff, but forget this vaccine business." This is ending up being a giant distraction. Now, I said that Bachmann may have jumped the shark. It's just a gut feeling. Last night on Fox she was on with the Greta after the debate and she continued to talk about this.

BACHMANN: It's the Merck drug company, and the governor's former chief of staff is the chief lobbyist for this big drug company; and mandated, again, that every girl would have to have this particular drug. And the problem is it comes with some very significant consequences. There's a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine. There are very dangerous consequences. It's not good enough to take, quote, "a Mulligan" or you want a do-over. Not when you have little children's lives at risk.

RUSH: All right, now, she had scored the points in the debate, but now this comment has become a news item for Bachmann today rather than what she said at the debate last night. That's what I mean by jumping the shark. She scored the points and should have left it there.

RUSH: We've got Vinny. Vinny in Queens. Vinny, are you no New York 9? Do you vote in that district?

CALLER: I wish I could vote in New York 9, but that's been gonna be some race to watch.

RUSH: That really is. I've got so much to say about that race, but I gotta wait 'til it's over.

CALLER: Well, let me say what I have to say, and that's this. You know, I like, Michelle Bachmann but, quite frankly, she sounded shrill last night. This is before what you just said about her talking to someone claiming that this drug causes mental illness. She sounded a lot like a Democrat by pushing the words "innocent" and "children" over and over and over again. Part of the problem we have in politics is people afraid to say, "Hey, I was wrong," okay? Rick Perry as much as said that to a degree. The guy basically came out and said, "Yeah, I would have done it differently. I'm sorry I did it that way," but she went after him over and over again. And I thought it was kind of unnecessary, and I thought it cheapened her status, quite frankly, as a contender. And I do like her, but I think -- and, by the way --

RUSH: Vinny, put yourself in her shoes. Here she comes out of the Iowa straw poll in Ames, she's the winner. Perry is not in the race yet. Perry announces -- and by the way, I, El Rushbo, predicted this. I said, If he announces, it's gonna shake everything pick up," and it did. He announces, and all of a sudden, even before his first debate appearance, he's in the top tier, and he's taken her place. She's got one chance here, in her mind, I'm sure, to recapture the energy that she had going into the straw poll and winning it in Iowa, and that's what last night was all about. You just think she did it the wrong way?

CALLER: I really think so. You know, I'm an adherent to Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment, thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.

CALLER: No, no. Let me finish. I know you're right. It is impossible, and they should go after each other, but we shouldn't sound like Chuck Schumer going after each other. We should make our point and we should go on to the next issue. Now, like you said Perry has a big problem with immigration. All these candidates have their problems. Okay? And, by the way, why does he look fatigued at the beginning of the second-hour? Because if you were Rick Perry and you realized every question from the moderator and every candidate is gunning for you you'd like fatigued, too. Because he knows what's coming. He knows if the guy tied his shoelace the wrong way they're gonna make an issue out of it, and I understand that part of the process, but to me that's why he kind of peters out the second hour because the guy spends all his time saying the same thing over and over and defending himself.

CALLER: Well, that's the way I feel about it, and let me premise again: I like Bachmann. I do. I just thought she went a little overboard last night with that whole child vaccination thing I really do.

RUSH: Seattle, Washington, as we go back to the phones. This is Ania. Great to have you. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Greetings from the beautiful state of Washington. By the way, from your intro, I just got back from Alaska and I just wanted to let you know the glaciers are fine, they're there, everything's good on that.

CALLER: Yeah, they're massive, they're huge, they're not going anywhere. But just about Bachmann's big pounce that she did on Perry yesterday and trying to get him on the HPV vaccine. I'm a mom, and there is an opt-out on this whole thing. Usually I really like Bachmann, I think she's very genuine, I just didn't see the real zinger in that one. It's just much ado about nothing. I think he was honest, Perry came out as being sincere, and if that was her big thing, I just didn't see it. I just wanted to share that there's an opt-out.

RUSH: I hear what you're saying. Okay, he admits that he made a mistake in the way it was implemented. He admits he made the mistake, and then the pile-on continues, and people did see that as a little bit gratuitous. That's what you're saying. I understand, especially since there was an opt-out. Again remember, now, from Bachmann's perspective, she's the Iowa straw poll winner. Perry announces, he totally takes over. This is a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. She's got to get back in that upper tier. She's got to go after the number one guy. That's what she's doing.

RUSHL Let's go to central Texas here. Janice, you're next. I'm glad you waited. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hello. Oh, my gosh, Rush Limbaugh, it's unbelievable I'm speaking to you. Have a great day. I have two points on Perry and Bachmann on the immunizations. Simply by mandating the immunizations, he put it on the schedule, the immunization schedule that's required for kids to even come to school for years. For instance, recently chicken pox, recently meningitis, recently hepatitis B, so Gardasil ought to be there. Now, if you've got a problem with getting your kids immunizations, there's always a flat risk, flat. But the benefits far outweigh that. Number two, with Gardasil and hepatitis B, they are both sexually commutated. And if you are a parent of a girl or a boy now, because both sexes can get this immunization now, you should definitely get it for your kids, because genital warts is so prevalent that the CDC doesn't count the numbers anymore, statistically speaking.

RUSH: Okay. So let me see if I understand where you are on this. You think that the Gardasil was a good thing, and you think that the mandatory vaccine of little girls in Texas that Perry required was a good thing?

CALLER: Absolutely. And if you didn't want it, then you take responsibility for what happens, don't ask me to pay for your opt-out if something goes wrong.

CALLER: And my other point is the Ponzi thing. If only people that added into Social Security were taken out it wouldn't be much of a problem. Unfortunately we have a lot of hands in that bucket that never put a dime in.

RUSH: Oh, yeah, I been there, too. Yeah, okay, well, this affords an opportunity. Here's a woman in Texas who has no problem with what Perry did on the Gardasil and the HVC vaccine, no problem whatsoever, thinks about everybody ought to get it. Now, I must admit, I bring no shortcomings to this program. However, there are things that I have to work extra special hard on to get up to speed with you on, and one of them is things involving kids, 'cause I don't have any. So my natural inclination when this stuff about the vaccine hits, it has no personal impact on me so I have to work hard to, quote, unquote, care about it. I don't have little girls, therefore I don't have the fear that mine are gonna get cervical cancer. Therefore when this thing hit, the natural inclination was, that's somebody else's problem.

Of course I can't afford to look at it that way. So I'm just wondering as I sit here how many of you mothers out there raced out and got this vaccine? When you heard what was being touted about the vaccine that it would go a long way toward vaccinating your kid, your daughter against cervical cancer, did you wait or how many of you, you know, a lot of people, government mandates a vaccine, when the Clintons came along and tried to do it, it depends on who's doing the mandating as to people's reaction. Now, here we have Janice in central Texas, just fine, she has no problem with it whatsoever. (interruption) What is that? Well, it only works before they've had sex. Right. Well, you have to get the vaccine -- yeah, preferably -- well, if it only works before the kids have sex, then you got to vaccinate them before they're seven or eight, I would think. Isn't that about right? I don't have kids. Isn't that about right?

So if you don't do it before they're seven or eight, is it automatic it doesn't work, or its chances of working are much reduced? (interruption) Oh, really? Oh, oh, your daughter, she had to sign something that said she hadn't had sex? So if you've had sex and you admit you've had sex as a kid they won't give you the vaccine? Okay. Okay. So it must be that it's no impact whatsoever if you've had sexual activity, zip, zero, nada. Well, let's go to the debate. Here's how this happened. It was in Tampa last night, and Wolf Blitzer said, "Governor Perry, as you well know you signed an executive order requiring little girls 11 and 12 to get a vaccine to deal with a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cervical cancer? Was that a mistake?"

PERRY: It was, indeed. If I had it to do over again, I woulda done it differently. I woulda gone to the legislature, worked with them. But what was driving me was obviously making a difference about young people's lives. I will tell you that I made a mistake by not going to the legislature first.

RUSH: Now, he also said he hates cancer. I mean I'm quoting him there, he hates cancer. At any rate, here is Bachmann after Blitzer said, "Congresswoman Bachmann, do you have anything to say about what Governor Perry just said?"

BACHMANN: I'm a mom, and I'm a mom of three children, and to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat-out wrong. That should never be done. That's a violation of the liberty interests. That's little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don't get a mulligan, they don't get a do-over. The parents don't get a do-over.

BACHMANN: We cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order, there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. It's wrong for a drug company because the governor's former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company. The drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor, and this is just flat-out wrong. The question is, is it about life or was it about millions of dollars and potentially billions for a drug company -- RUSH: All right, so there was the charge, crony capitalism, that Perry had no real interest here in saving lives, he wasn't interested in that, it was simply the fact that his former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for Merck, and that there was a payoff, and that that's why he insisted on the vaccine be given because it had to be bought, and that meant profits. So Perry said that he ended up being offended by this.

PERRY: Yes, sir. The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them. I raise about $30 million, and if you're saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I'm offended.

BACHMANN: I'm offended for all the little girls and the parents that didn't have a choice. That's what I'm offended for.

RUSH: Now, what I didn't understand throughout this whole thing was there was an opt-out, there was a choice, there was an opt-out. I don't know how widely advertised the opt-out was, but there clearly was an opt-out there. Now, I'm also being told that we might not be correct here in saying that this vaccine is no good if given to you after you have sex. There's a school of thought that says the Gardasil only works if you get the vaccine before you get the HPV infection. It's not so much that you've had sex; it's that it only works before you've had the infection. If you get the infection first, the vaccine doesn't work.

I am not a doctor, I don't play one on television, and I don't want to be stamping official medical news that we're putting out here that may not be a hundred percent accurate here. In other words, you have to be vaccinated before you get the infection. All vaccines work that way, that's what a vaccine is. The smallpox vaccine will not prevent you from getting smallpox or chicken pox, mumps, whatever they shoot you up for. In my day, the polio vaccine was a sugar cube that they gave you and had something in it, kids loved the sugar cubes. But if you had polio it wouldn't do any good. All vaccines actually work that way.

RUSH: Now, on this crony capitalism business. I mentioned this at the top of the program. Sarah Palin jumped on this with Greta last night, the Perry and the Merck thing. She jumped all over, in defense of Bachmann. There's no evidence that what Bachmann charged Perry with doing happened, and Perry said he can't be bought for five grand. A cynic could listen to what Perry said, "Well, what is the price?" (laughing) I'm not saying that. Some could. Crony capitalism is when the government is using tax dollars to subsidize a particular industry or company. What Bachmann is accusing Perry of is a quid pro quo. That's making a decision based on a donation. That's not crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is what Obama's doing with GE and Solyndra and that kind of stuff.

RUSH: Palin getting involved in this is a little unsettling only because there's no evidence that Perry did any of this, and it really isn't crony capitalism anyway. Now, if you're making official policy in exchange for a donation, we're talking about something criminal, and that you'd better be able to back up if you're going to charge that. That's why, frankly, people cringed when she said it, because that takes it to a different level. That's not simply a policy disagreement; that's an accusation of criminal activity that she made, Bachmann against Perry. That's why this little nervousness that you could see and sense settle through the hall there, changed the whole dynamic.

I thought she jumped the shark by pounding on this so much last night. My opinion really dropped. With opt out, parents did have a choice so by saying over and over that they didn’t, wasn’t truthful.

I thought the illegals issue was the most damaging issue.

Perry kept saying that he didn’t want the young illegals on the government dole, so he had them in school learning to be productive. What he should have added was that the Federal government requires putting them on the dole if they are not productive, and the Federal government won’t let him Deport them.

The Fed needs to be blamed 100% for the illegal issue.

This was incredibly stupid of her.

It makes her look emotional and unscientific -- two traits she's displayed before. Some (many?) conservatives may not like how Perry ordered the shots, but vaccinations for school are completely uncontroversial save for a fringe few.

I don't think this will work out for her at all.

Poor little RINO Perry.

Merck tried to push untested Gardasil on Gov. Palin.
She refused and did not sell the children of Alaska
as lab rats, like the RINO Perry.

Bachmann and Palin going over the top. Sad and pathetic.

Ridiculous!

Perry : Rams Gardasil down taxpayer throats in the name of crony capitalism —> goof

Bachman : Possible overstep in debate —> jumped the shark

Whatever!

Bachmann made the ultimate mistake a female politician can make. She came off as whiny, petty and bytchy.

She might as well hang it up. She'll never ascend to the oval office.

GOVERNOR PALIN: "I was governor of Alaska at the time that that issue came down,
and I told our health and human services department Alaska
was not going to mandate immunizations for our teenage daughters.
And there had to have been something to that whole issue
because it just didn't sound like Governor Perry. Governor Perry was,
you know, the proverbial anti-government type of maverick there in Texas,
and yet on this issue, he decided that he was going to know
better than a parent was going to know in terms of what the health care
or health benefit would be for their teenage daughters.
So I knew there was something to it."

Rush is so wrong on Palin, his accuracy rating just took a huge hit.

Palin is being Palin, get used to it...

Here’s hoping Sarah gives Rush a wakeup call tomorrow!

I also thought Huntsmen was desperate when he threw out the not securing the border is treason.

What a jack wagon. Yeah, we all want the border locked down, but it came across so contrived that it made him look sillier than usual.

You should feel good. Perry definitely took damage last night.

I hope you feel as good when Mitt is our nominee and Barack is inaugurated again for his second term in January 2013.

This is all playing out just like the GOP establishment planned it. I imagine even they can't help but be surprised by the help they have gotten from those on the right though.

Bachmann's always been a joke candidate. Most interesting part of Rush's show today to me (first hour anyway) was how he made it clear he'd have no problem voting for Romney.

With Perry floundering at the debates, Rush is ahead of the curve trying to prepare people for a possible Romney win. I was ready to support Perry, but in two debates, he's lost me.

“I thought she jumped the shark by pounding on this so much last night. My opinion really dropped. With opt out, parents did have a choice so by saying over and over that they didn’t, wasn’t truthful.”

My reaction exactly. “Jump the shark” was how I felt when she did the over-the-top innocent girl comment. Of course, Huntsman topped with his “treason” comment.

So ... I guess we are not alone in this POV.

Huck, I thought he did really good last night. The first debate had me worried. I think he is getting better and more comfortable at it.

I wish we had seen more of the after debate question and answer he was doing with a large crowd. That seemed really cool and genuine.

I don't think Rush understands completely the meaning of 'jump the shark'.

If he meant she overreached for dramatic effect, OK.

But by no stretch of the imagination will it effect her campaign in any substantive way.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.