that Bachmann jumped the shark by passing along a woman’s (pitiable) charge that her child became retarded from getting a vaccine, I take issue with a couple of things here.

First, and mostly, the snappy line that she should “go back to Minnesota and pray the crazy away” is highly unfortunate. It of course echoes the liberal mocking of “pray the gay away”, in which the power of God to heal immoral behavior is held to be impossible. It’s a nice bit of well-poisoning, that one. On the plus side, Liz at least left open that the effort to pray away the crazy might be successful.

Secondly, the idea that if Bachmann didn’t oppose every STD innoculation then she is forever barred from opposing any STD innoculation is bad logic, which I try to oppose when I find it.

Bachmann, upon hearing someone say that a vaccine caused her child’s disability, should have realized she was dealing with Cindy Sheahan syndrome — someone latching on to a conspiracy theory because they were incapable of accepting the nasty hand reality had dealt them. The response is simply to listen, nod, and “I will pray for you” or “I’ve never heard of that happening before” or, most appropriately, nothing at all.

Instead, faced with the stress of the campaign and the need to recapture some kind of momentum, Bachmann latched on to the straw. It indicates that either Bachmann is not the owner of a well-rounded education, or that she is a political opportunist without the sense not to say something for which she can be ridiculed. “And” may be at home here.

In the end, she panicked, and ruined any chance of her campaign succeeding. Oh, she could have said she was only talking about the woman’s emotional response to vaccinations, and not her own opinion, or some such blather, but if that were actually the case she would have said it that way in the first place.