Bachmann’s Sin: The media will let Democrats get away with driving a girl off a bridge, but Republicans won’t be given the benefit of the doubt

While the media are trying to paint Rep. Michele Bachmann (R.-Minn.) as a blunder-prone candidate—or “flake,” as Chris Wallace unjustifiably called her on “Fox News Sunday”—Barack Obama and many of his Democrat colleagues have played “Can You Top This?” with their own misstatements and slipups, and yet they do not receive even a scintilla of the scrutiny that Bachmann does.

Jason Mattera writes about the double standards of the mainstream media.

Within the last three years, the media’s self-appointed smartest President in modern history has insulted the Special Olympics, mixed up the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, falsely claimed that his American Uncle liberated Auschwitz, signed the Westminster Abbey guest book with the date 24 May 2008 when the date was really 24 May 2011, mispronounced “corpsman” when speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, and perhaps most egregiously, God’s gift to the presidency couldn’t even distinguish between living and dead Medal of Honor recipients.

And that’s just off the top of my head.
[One key item that Jason Mattera omitted was Obama's misstating the age of one of his daughters — imagine if George W Bush or Sarah Palin had done that.]

…Bachmann’s sin is that she has an “R” next to her name. Mistakenly identifying the birthplace of John Wayne should serve as a reminder to all Republican contenders that every word they utter will be dissected under a microscope and debated, a hell of a lot more than their Democrat counterparts. The media will let Democrats get away with driving a girl off a bridge and leaving her to die (Ted Kennedy), but Republicans, especially unapologetic conservative ones, won’t be given the benefit of the doubt, even when it comes to inconsequential errors.

Rather than promise to grill Michele Bachmann’s foster kids or highlight the number of times she used the word “Iowa” in a speech in … Iowa, journalists could turn their sharp pens and cantankerous voices to the growing number of businesses suspiciously exempted from ObamaCare, the expanding number of surveys reporting that employers are dropping coverage because of the President’s health-care law, and the Democrats’ inability to offer any proposals to reform our Medicare system.