Michele Bachmann: Beware 'the Soviet Union'

Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said in a radio interview that Americans are nervous about the "rise of the Soviet Union," which collapsed in 1991. (Mary Ann Chastain / Reuters)

By James Oliphant
LA Times
11:29 AM PDT, August 19, 2011

For Michele Bachmann, the hits keep coming. While on the campaign trail earlier this week, she mixed up Elvis Presley’s birthday with the day he died. Now, she has apparently brought an Elvis-era menace back from the dead, citing in an interview the growing might of—the Soviet Union.

According to the liberal website Think Progress, Bachmann, whose grasp of history on the trail at times has been somewhat shaky, said during a radio interview Thursday that Americans today are mindful of the threat posed by a rising U.S.S.R., which, like Elvis, left the building a long, long time ago. (Listen below.)

“What people recognize is that there’s a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline. They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward,” Bachmann said on conservative activist Jay Sekulow’s show. “And especially with this very bad debt ceiling bill, what we have done is given a favor to President Obama, and the first thing he’ll whack is 500 billion out of the military defense at a time when we’re fighting three wars. People recognize that.”

It was the second historical gaffe in a week for the Minnesota congresswoman, who was flying high after her win in the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa last weekend.

(More here.)