So Bachmann backs off her comments now?

Conservatives are out working hard to save one of the only true Conservatives the Republican's have left in Minnesota. Whether its Jason Lewis debating Eva Young on KTLK or blogs like Residual Forces coming to Bachmann's defense, the spin is out in full force.

Lewis and RF place the blame on an ultra liberal agenda to smear Congresswoman Bachmann.

They fall seriously short though in explaining why the Congresswoman made these comments. The bottomline is, had the Congresswoman not said such outrageous comments, this would not be a story.

Did Bachmann just make that stuff up? Who would have entrusted her to such information. If anyone on the Minnesota GOP delegation would have been John Kline. Hell, he carried the nuclear football! I know, I saw the commerical.

But I digress. SC Times coverage.

First, we misconstrued her comments.

In a statement she issued Friday afternoon, Bachmann, R-Minn., did not retract her remarks on Iran but said they had "been misconstrued."

The release did not specify how her words had been misconstrued, nor by whom. But it reframes her partitioning statement to say that "there are multiple reasons to believe (Iran) would seek to expand their territory to include Shi'a Iraq."

I did not misconstrue her comments, how could any of us misconstue this maddness?

“And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called ... the Iraq State of Islam, something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it is meant to be the training ground for the terrorists.

Did Bachmann leak confidential info?

Bachmann did not explain where she received her information, though Bachmann
said in a Jan. 21 Times story she and U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., had received "classified information on the war effort" during a visit to the Pentagon.

If, and that's a big if, this info was learned in this meeting, we have another Valerie Plame case on our hands.

Political science professionals weigh in. From the Strib.

University of Minnesota political scientist Kathryn Pearson, who specializes in Congress, said Bachmann's original statement was "extremely irresponsible." Members of Congress are privy to intelligence that the rest of the public isn't. So when a member of Congress says something of such significance, the first assumption is that she knows something that the public doesn't. So on that basis, people are going to take it seriously.

"Either this is top secret information that she's leaking, which is a problem. Or she's presenting her thoughts on a very serious topic as if they were established fact, and that's a problem for other reasons," Pearson said.

Washington University Prof. Steve Smith, another Congress watcher who lives in the Sixth District, said Bachmann's first statement "was a pretty strong claim to make. If she can't back it up she should be held accountable."

Smith speculated the original statement was drawn from some ideas circulating in "the neoconservative network in which she circulates."

Not even two months into the Bachmann term and all this news. We know that she is a lightning rod for controversey, but she definately does herself more harm than good with rants like the Iran rant.