Free Republic

Sarah Palin was in Iowa Tuesday. Michele Bachmann announced her candidacy there on Monday. For reporters, that's a coincidence impossible to resist; scads of stories are being produced comparing the two women. Comparisons between Palin and Bachmann are, at one level, apt. Both are women who align most closely with social conservatives. Both are outspoken defenders of their chosen causes whose rhetoric occasionally gets them into hot water. But over the past few months, Bachmann has proven she is different in important ways from Palin - differences that make her the more viable of the two when it comes to...

Rep. Michele Bachmann kicked off her presidential campaign on Monday in Waterloo, Iowa, and in one interview surrounding the official event she promised to mimic the spirit of Waterloo's own John Wayne. The only problem, as one eagle-eyed reader notes: Waterloo's John Wayne was not the beloved movie star, but rather John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer. Mrs. Bachmann grew up in Waterloo, and used the town as the backdrop for her campaign announcement, where she told Fox News: "Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit...

Bachmann doesn't accept apology for 'flake' question By Michael O'Brien - 06/27/11 08:10 AM ET Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she wasn't accepting the apology of Fox anchor Chris Wallace, who asked her Sunday if she was a "flake." Bachmann rejected an apology from Wallace, who challenged whether the Tea Party-aligned congresswoman was serious in her bid for the Republican presidential nomination. "I think that it's insulting to insinuate that a candidate for president is less than serious," Bachmann said in an interview on ABC when asked about Wallace's apology, which he posted online. "Those are the small issues," Bachmann...