Michele Bachmann

From Salon's War Room here.

Bachmann warns of "re-education camps"

As I said in my last post, while I think it's unfair, unreasonable and inaccurate to blame the rhetoric of people like Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., for the fatal shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh on Saturday, it's time for Bachmann and her fellow travelers to think seriously about the real-world impact of some of their more paranoid statements. This weekend provided a good example of comments that Bachmann should go back and reconsider.

Bachmann has been on a roll lately, worrying that the U.S. is making "the final leap to socialism" and spreading ludicrous theories about the potential replacement of the dollar as U.S. currency. Over the weekend, in an interview with a local radio station, Bachmann jumped on what's now become a substantial bandwagon, espousing one of the paranoid, and completely untrue, rumors about the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a bill intended to enhance volunteerism in the U.S.

"It's not volunteerism at all," Bachmann said. "I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums." (Hat-tip to the Minnesota Independent.)

If you're curious, FactCheck.org has a good debunking of this sort of stuff about the bill.