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.

Perry took damage mostly because he had to stand there with a bunch of doofuses (like Santorum) calling him treasonous, while being questioned by a liberal idiot.

(remember wolf blitzer on jeopardy? he was no Einstein)

I can see why Sarah Palin is just sitting back taking it all in. One day she will jump up and so “Ok I’ve had enough of this- who wants to win an election”.

And the crowds will roar~!

Bachmann overreached in the debate with the Gardisil argument, and then she totally jumped the shark with her interview with Greta.

Do you know what she sounded like? A money-crazy ambulance-chasing lawyer!

Any minute I expected her to serve Perry with papers for malpractice. The "poor innocent 'ittle girl"--the "some kook stopped me in the lobby to tell me that vaccines cause her to be retarded." Or something.

Sounded like the closing argument that John Edwards would make to try to bilk an insurance company out of millions.

Reminded me of why I don't like lawyers holding office...

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

Bachman : Possible overstep in debate —> jumped the shark

Well, sure. This is gaffe-oriented, gotcha journalism.

What you say or do in the debates counts more than what you said or did before.

Whatever you already know gets dismissed as "old news."

The "old news" is still around and can still hurt a candidate, but it's more of a slow leak than a rapid puncture or blow-out.

Or something.

I'm open to Perry having to take the tough shots. Let someone who went to the U of Texas, for instance, but is now an expat Texan in another state who would like to send his son to UT, but can't afford the out of state tuition...but Perry gives in-state tuition not only to non-citizens of the US, but lawbreaking aliens.

Nobody's perfect, but Bachmann showed her poor political skills and lack of restraint. She was getting close to hysterical because she managed to land a couple of good punches. Then she saw blood and couldn't quit until she made an idiot of herself.

Not good.

I have said before, vetting absolutely needs to happen now.

Suggesting someone is a criminal because of Gardasil isn't vetting though. It is slander.

In my estimation, too many on our side have been all too eager to maliciously trash a guy in order to try to prop themselves or their candidate up.

You are 100% correct that it ultimately comes down to the candidate. I will suggest though that subjecting him to repeated lies, half truths and slander in order to try to make him look like an unreasonable lunatic was not in the long-term best interest of any of us.

I don’t think Bachmann overstepped on Gardasil.

http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/gardasil_side_effects

As of January 2010 49 young women had DIED from the vaccination and there are also neurological impacts which could be vernacularly stated as ‘mental retardation’. It’s a poor choice of words, true, but the fact remains is that this vaccine is not safe.

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 my entire problem with Palin's words last night on FoxNews. Serious charges require serious evidence, and Palin instead made a flippant comment about what would be a criminal activity by Rick Perry.

Rush is completely wrong about it not being crony capitalism. It’s a classic example of it. Here’s a slew of definitions of it:

crony capitalism
Definition
An economy that is nominally free-market, but allows for preferential regulation and other favorable government intervention based on personal relationships. In such a system, the false appearance of “pure” capitalism is publicly maintained to preserve the exclusive influence of well-connected individuals.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/crony-capitalism.html

What Does Crony Capitalism Mean?
A description of capitalist society as being based on the close relationships between businessmen and the state. Instead of success being determined by a free market and the rule of law, the success of a business is dependent on the favoritism that is shown to it by the ruling government in the form of tax breaks, government grants and other incentives.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cronycapitalism.asp#axzz1XsNK6gFC

Crony capitalism is a pejorative term describing an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between businesspeople and government officials. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

Used to describe a capitalist economy in which government or corporate officials and insiders provide lucrative opportunities for their friends and relatives. Term became popular during the Asian Crisis to describe some of the victim countries, but is now often used elsewhere as well.
www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/c.html

A form of market economy in which the impersonal links of the market are superceded by personal links based on the relationships of those in government with business-people.
www.palgrave.com/business/white/glossary/glossary.htm

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1TSNH_enUS444US444&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=crony+capitalism+definition#hl=en&rlz=1C1TSNH_enUS444US444&q=crony+capitalism&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=rd5vTp7ZDo7H0AG2uZ2yCg&ved=0CBsQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=e97cfd05dfef89c0&biw=1024&bih=475

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