During Thursday night's GOP presidential debate from Sioux City, IA, Michele Bachmann found out what it's like to attack a true top tier candidate.
Michele again made the mistake of overplaying her hand. Thursday night, she accused Newt Gingrich of not being pro-life enough for her liking:
REP. BACHMANN: When Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, he had an opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood and he chose not to take it. That's a big issue. Even more troubling, when he was in Washington, DC, he made an affirmative statement that he would not only support, but he would campaign for Republicans who were in support of the barbaric procedure known as partial birth abortion. I could never do that and, as a matter of fact, George Will asked the question of Speaker Gingrich this: Is it a virtue to tolerate infanticide?
This is a seminal issue. It's something that we can't get wrong and, as president of the United States, I will be 100% pro-life from conception until natural death.
CHRIS WALLACE: Speaker Gingrich?
NEWT GINGRICH: Sometimes Congresswoman Bachmann doesn't get her facts very accurate. I had a 98.5% right-to-life voting record in 20 years. The only difference was that they didn't like the initial Welfare reform bill, which every other conservative group said had nothing in it about abortion. That's the only one in 20 years.
I believe that life begins at conception. The conversation we're having, which was from an ABC interview, I was frankly thinking about proposing a commission to look at fertility clinics because I do think there is a challenge to what happens with embryos because, by definition, they have been conceived. I am against any experimentation on embryos. I actually think that my position has been very clear and very consistent.
Not willing to admit that she'd been proven wrong, Rep. Bachmann doubled down, saying:
This isn't just once. I think it's outrageous to say over and over that I don't get my facts right when, in fact, I do. I'm a serious candidate for president of the United States and my facts are accurate.
Speaker Gingrich said that he would support and actively campaign for Republicans who got behind the barbaric practice of partial birth abortion. This is not a small issue. This is a big issue. And I think George Will was right when he asked that question "What virtue is there in tolerating infanticide"?
SPEAKER GINGRICH: First of all, what I said on that issue is that I wouldn't go out and try and purge Republicans. Now, I don't see how you're going to govern the country if you're going around trying to decide who you're going to purge.
The fact is that, twice while I was Speaker of the House, we moved the ban on partial birth abortion. Clinton vetoed it. We worked very hard, and Rick Santorum has been a leader on this issue. I have consistently opposed partial birth abortion. I, in fact, would like to see us go much further than that and eliminate abortions as a choice. And I said that, as president, I would defund Planned Parenthood and shift the money to pay for adoptions to give young women the choice of life rather than death.
What's stunning is the fact that reporters haven't demanded Rep. Bachmann cite which Republican from that time didn't support banning partial birth abortion. The fact is that many pro-choice Democrats were so repulsed by the procedure that they voted to ban that barbaric procedure.
This article chronicles the votes:
On November 1, 1995, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 288 to 139 to pass the ban on partial-birth abortion. On December 7, 1995, the U.S. Senate voted 54 to 44 to ban this procedure. President Bill Clinton vetoed this bill on April 10, 1996.
After President Clinton was re-elected, prolife legislators continued to work to ban this procedure. On March 20, 1997, the House voted 295 to 136 to pass a bill that was similar to the one from 1995 with slight language changes. On May 20, 1997, the U.S. Senate voted 64 to 36 for the ban. Unfortunately, the Senate was three votes shy of the necessary two-thirds majority to override the veto that was promised by President Clinton.
Following the historic elections of 1994, Republicans held 230 seats in the House. Following the 1996 election, Republicans held 228 seats. That means that 58 Democrats voted to ban partial birth abortion in 1995. That means that 67 Democrats voted to ban partial birth abortions in 1997.
What reporters should ask Rep. Bachmann is which mythical Republicans supported partial birth abortion. It'd be surprising if she had an answer for that question.
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