Michele Bachmann uses false numbers to criticize Obama's trip to India

This week, Michele Bachmann, with a straight face, reported that President Obama’s Asia tour to promote trade, with the first stop in India—will cost the taxpayers “200 million dollars a day.”

Bachmann claimed that Obama was taking 2000 people with him and would be renting 870 rooms at the five star Taj Mahal hotel.

Bachmann claimed it was true, because it was in a report “on the Internet”, therefore it must be correct.

The misinformation was started by an anonymous source quoted in an India newspaper, which was snatched up by Dredge, then migrated to Fox.

Sean Hannity jumped on the Kool Aid bandwagon, by reporting similar numbers as Bachmann, except he claimed the president was taking 3000 people with him.

Glenn Beck doubled down on the President by saying the trip would cost the tax payers $2 BILLION dollars a day, which would include 34 war ships off the shore of India.

Not to be outdone in the misleading numbers, Rush Limbaugh echoed everyone else’s false claims, but just for kicks, threw in the president’s entourage would include “40 planes.”

During a similar trip, when Bill Clinton was president, the 12 day journey cost $3.6 million a day. Obama’s trip is expected to have similar costs, but the exact figures will be available to the public at the completion of the trip and they will be no where near what the conservative pundits are declaring.

Bachmann claims that 870 rooms will be rented at the Taj Mahal Palace, but it only takes a 30 second Google search to learn TMP only has 565 rooms. Her claim is to smear the President for opulence and excess, even though former presidents have stayed at the TMP. She implies that President Obama shouldn’t have the same dignity.

For perspective, the Afghanistan war is costing $190 million per day. Obama would have to go overboard 50 times on excess to get within throwing distance of that number.

The conservative leaning Washington Post said the figures being spouted by Bachmann, Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh and the rest of the Fox Obama-hate-mongering machine were “demonstrably incorrect.” For one thing, the press pays its own way on such trips, not the taxpayers.

Fact checking, common sense, and journalistic integrity are scarce commodities at the Fox network. They are all so bent on discrediting every thing that President Obama does--that concern for accuracy or verification of negative information does not exist.

They are willing to throw any amount of mud against the wall in hopes that some of it will land on the president.

In reality, they make themselves look like idiots, but their audience doesn’t care. They believe anything the conservative hate machine can spit out, no matter how absurd it may sound.

Evidently, if Rush Limbaugh said Obama was taking 1000 flying monkeys wearing golden collars to Mars next week and it was going to cost the taxpayers 500 gazillion dollars—conservatives would believe it.

That is how mentally disconnected they have become.

The fact is India and China will be important for future trade, which translates into American jobs and improved economy. Obama is wise enough to recognize the strategic importance of finding out what these countries need; that U.S. factories can produce and export to them.

The White House released a statement on the ridiculous costs being circulated:

“Let us be clear. Those numbers are not based in reality and are wildly inflated. The costs of this Asia tour are in line with previous presidential trips.”

***Jean Williams