How Badly Did Michele Bachmann Screw Up Her Autobiography?

Badly! Presidential candidate and congresswoman Michele Bachmann's new memoir Core of Conviction is out, and Mother Jones' Tim Murphy has read it, for some reason. Here are some of the wrong things Bachmann wrote in her book, about herself.

  • Bachmann says her first run for state senate began organically—she was drafted to run on the spot after speaking up at a nominating convention. "I was just doing my duty as a citizen, speaking out. It was like that wonderful Norman Rockwell painting from the forties, Freedom of Speech, in which an earnest man speaks out at a town meeting, politely but firmly." (It's not every day you read people actually openly claiming to be like a heroic character from a Rockwell painting.) The weird thing about that spontaneous Rockwellian moment of democratic action was that she brought pro-Bachmann campaign signs with her and had repeatedly threatened to run for the seat in the lead-up to the convention.
  • Bachmann helped found a public charter school in Stillwater, Minn., with a bunch of Christian activists, but she insists that she "never sought to impose Christianity on our students." Which is true. She only sought to impose "20 principles of Christian management," not to mention creationism, on the students. Totatally different things.
  • Bachmann calls the Troubled Assets Relief Program is labeled a "$700 billion blank check." As Murphy puts it, "that's a logical impossibility."
  • The book's most touching moment? George W. Bush's heartfelt advice to her on her entry into the politcal arena: "The president looked at me and said, 'room temperature water is healthier.'" Gives you shivers, don't it?
  • [Image via Getty]