Michele Bachmann Pledges to Destroy Economy in First Ad

By Jim Newell | July 7, 2011 | 9:45pm

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Here’s Michele Bachmann’s first presidential campaign ad, “Waterloo,” named after the famous serial killer town in Iowa. It’s pleasant enough — here are my five kids, and then my other 10 billion foster kids, and here is a timelapse pretty Midwestern bridge, now can I be president?

But then she says, “I. Wil. Not. Vote. To increase the debt ceiling.” Well, the president does not vote on that, so it’s unclear what bearing that should have on her presidential campaign. But let’s say that if she were president, she would not sign a bill increasing the debt ceiling. This a perfect example of how warped the public’s perception of the “debt ceiling” is, that any politician would ever say this, let alone as a means of garnering positive attention in your first campaign ad. What if she had said, “I will allow the United States to destroy itself for no reason whatsoever,” instead? Because it’s the same thing. And people wouldn’t really like that, would they? “I will allow the United States to destroy itself for no reason whatsoever”? Whoa hey, no thank you! Bring on the next candidate, amirite? Jesus Christ.