Michele Bachmann: 'Anti-vaccine wingnut'?

Bachmann successfully attacks Rick Perry's push to vaccinate young girls against HPV — then quickly fumbles by tying the vaccine to "mental retardation"

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)
(Image credit: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni)

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) earned glowing reviews for her performance in Monday's CNN/Tea Party presidential debate. Her perceived finest moment: Hammering Texas Gov. Rick Perry over his (quickly overruled) 2007 executive order mandating that "innocent little 12-year-old girls" in Texas get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted infection HPV. Bachmann didn't fare as well, however, in her post-debate media blitz, ill-advisedly repeating the cautionary tale of a mother who claimed her daughter "suffered from mental retardation" because of the HPV vaccine. Has Bachmann "jumped the shark" (as Rush Limbaugh suggests) by attacking vaccines instead of just Perry?

Bachmann is sabotaging herself: Bachmann's odd assertion sounds a lot like the "thoroughly debunked" claim that childhood vaccines cause autism, says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. And as with the autism "nonsense," there is no evidence that the HPV vaccine has ever caused anything like "mental retardation." Bachmann really blew it here, quickly fleeing the debate's winner's circle for the fringe camp of "anti-vaccine wingnuts like Jenny McCarthy."

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