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James Novogrod / NBC News
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., addresses reporters Saturday in Estherville, Iowa, where she was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination.
ALGONA, Iowa – A feud inside the GOP presidential field provoked Michele Bachmann to defend her hard line on Iran on Saturday while insisting that she doesn't "hate Muslims."
Bachmann repeated variations on that phrase in at least three cities during her 99 county bus tour of Iowa.
"I don't hate Muslims. I love the American people. And as president of the United States, my goal will be to keep America safe, free, and sovereign," Bachmann told reporters Saturday morning in Estherville.
The unusually personal self-defense is the latest element in a back-and-forth with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who criticized Bachmann on national television Friday night.
Appearing on NBC's "Tonight Show," Paul said Bachmann "doesn’t like" Muslims.
"She hates Muslims," Paul added. "She wants to go get 'em."
The origins of the feud go back to Thursday's Fox News debate, in Sioux City, where Paul and Bachmann locked horns over how to handle the prospect of a nuclear Iran.
"There's war propaganda going on," Paul said of pronouncements among the GOP about confronting the threat.
"To me, the greatest danger is that we will have a president that will overreact and we will soon bomb Iran," he added.
Kevin Winter / NBCuniversal / Getty Images Contributor
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul appears on the "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" Friday at NBC Studios in Burbank, Calif.
Asked to reply, Bachmann said: "I think I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one that we just heard from Ron Paul."
She later added that the idea of not confronting Iran amounts to "the greatest under-reaction in world history."
(Bachmann's plan on Iran, unveiled in November, does not call for an immediate strike, but recommends "crushing" sanctions and covert activity to destabilize the regime.)
On Saturday, Bachmann used Paul's charge that she "hates" Muslims to advance her own assertions about Iran's leaders.
"Where the true hatred is coming from is the president of Iran and the mullahs," Bachmann told reporters in Algona.
"They’ve said unequivocally that they want to obtain a nuclear weapon for the express purpose of using it against our ally, Israel, to kill the Jews," she said, adding: "They also want to use it against the United States and kill Americans."
Related story: Pickets swarm Lowe's in Arab-American Michigan community for pulling ads from Muslim TV show
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seems like she is bickering on words. She does not hate them but she cannot stand them....a technicality.
Michele Doesn't hate Muslims, just Islam. She doesn't hate jews either, just judaism. She definitetly doesn't hate hispanics, just Mexico. She doesn't hate African Americans, just Africa. And she doesn't hate homosexuals, just their partners.
Me thinks the lady doth protest too much. Everytime she opens her mouth and speaks about the Muslims, her ignorance and prejudice show. There would be something seriously wrong with the majority of people in this country if we picked such an ignorant leader for our President. God help the gays, the Muslims,the blacks and anyone who does not share her views!
....why, what are you afraid of?......
People like you!
If this woman would somehow get elected president i am NEVER voting again. My faith in the american voter will be over. Anyone who would vote for this waste of flesh woman needs to have their head examined. She is absolute trash.
.....Americans don't need you to display your ignorance in the voting booth.....please refrain and help your country....
Your an IDIOT if you vote for her. I am amazed by some peoples stupidity.
nycguy - you are a traitor to this country and our constitution. please move to a place more suitable to your degenerate ideas, like the sudan.
A victory by ANY of the declared Republican candidates (except Ron Paul) will mean war with Iran, probably within 3 months of the inauguration. Another Middle East war will mean skyrocketing oil prices, gas lines, freezing homes, shut factories, and depression. And for what? Another imagined enemy crushed, but at what cost? And who will next? At what point will we run out of "enemies" to bomb?
Miss I am proud to be a christian hates anyone that doesnt look like she and Marcus, who I am suspect of. This woman is a joke and best. She goes around lying and blaming the President for the economic failures of Bush and the Repuds. the 15 Trillion dollar debt is in large part due to those 2 unfunded wars that Bush and Cheney lied us into.
Bachman loves the American people??? Really, I find that pretty laughable............ She only loves the very, very few that are hate filled, narrow-minded & stupid enough to follow the Republican agenda of consolidating wealth and power in the hands of the few while wraping themselves in the American flag of blind Patriotism. Of course she hates Muslims......that' obvious.
Mike....do you live in Boulder or under a boulder?......
And your point with Mike is??? He is dead on accurate when it comes to that broad and if you've read thru any of the other threads, 11 pages, you would see that at least 90% are on the same page as him, so go crawl back into the subway!
Steelermama- you've played too much football without a helmet......time for you and the left wing sheeple to STFU........
I'm not crazy about some of Ron Paul's ideas but I sure find his candor and debate challenges refreshing to the max. I'd like to see a Ron Paul vs. Obama presidential race. While I like Obama to a point, I would love to see Paul call him out on some of his overly pragmatic, maintaining-the-status quo stupor. Hell, I might even vote for Paul if he gives up his rhetoric on destroying the EPA, etc.
Who would've thought... Ms. Michelle saying that she doesn't hate Muslims - she just killed any chance she had of ever getting the tea Party nomination, all they stand for is hatred...
she just wants the Muslims to disappear with the gays, poor, homeless, uneducated, and anyone that''s not a millionaire. out of her country, state, county, city, and gated community, that's all, nothing wrong with that, she is very upfront about it. so what's wrong
@ Opp,
Not the uneducated - those are her only supporters... ;-)
But how do Muslims feel about her? And more importantly, how do the dangerous, misguided muslims extremists feel about her? And just as importantly, and what kept Hillary from gaining my support in 08: How can a woman President hope to deal with nations where women are still largely considered 2nd class citizens, property, or less?
We might be ready, as a nation, for this kind of first, but the rest of the uncivilized world? I'm thinking no.
Women have been leaders of other industrialized nations (see Britain) so I honestly don't know what you're getting at by pure gender.
Michelle has some serious issues and (with Palin) has set women in US politics back considerably. But women in general can lead. But people should never be voted for (or against) solely based on what's between their legs.
Or who - and I'm not basing qualifications on gender, but rather, stepping back to look at the bigger picture. Yes, there are a number of nations with women leaders who do just fine jobs of it. But these nations are not regarded as "The Great Satan" or whatever other BS name Islamic radicals hand out - they have given that distinction to the US.
It wasn't Big Ben that had aircraft flown into it.
No one has bombed the Eiffel Tower.
Yes, there have been incidents, but in comparison of magnitudes, the US has bore the brunt of this.
I only question the ability of woman leader of an already reviled country to improve that standing.
This will not win her points with Republicans, who most certainly do hate Muslims, along with Mexicans, scientists, scholars, Democrats, foreigners, and pretty much anybody who's not a crazed nut job like them. They probably know she's lying, since she lies about everything.
Well Bachmann you should as they all hate us.
*Yawn- nobody cares if you like Muslims or not- go away
We all know that God hated Native Americans and Blacks====looky what happened to them. Onward Christians and get them Muslims. Bachmann=====Please take your money and go away ------It is painful, listening to you. You are a true believer who hates everyone that isn t like you. GO AWAY, Besides you have no chance to get the Potus. Zeus came to me in a dream last week and told me so. I do think you are kind of hot in an eerie sort of way tho.
Is she still around?
Meanwhile, we have a vice-president who doesn't think the taliban is our enemy. I'd be more afraid of this a whole than Bachmann http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/biden-taliban-se-not-our-enemy_613579.html
They aren't. Al Qaeda is. There's no reason we should give two @!$%#s about those cavemen in the Taliban; our war was with Osama Bin Laden.
America empowered the Taliban. Check your history.
"Bitchy Bachmann" is not only Cognitively Disabled. She is very mentally ill, and is culturally intolerant of others. "Bitchy Bachmann" is as Behaviorally Disturbed as "Clueless Coulter" the main spewer for the Nazis News Network. AKA. Fox News. She is a Tea Begger, a "Bonehead Birther," and a Functional Illiterate. Her hatred is dumb, dangerous, and no thinking at all is indicated when she tries to spew. Again!! Sick of listening to the GOP/RNC yet America?? I hope so!!
Bachmann reminds me of a novel written more than a century ago. The more things change.....
"Oh, I know that, Editha. I know how sincere you are, and how-- I wish I had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone; though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war--so stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled reasonably?"
"Because," she said, very throatily again, "God meant it to be war."
"You think it was God? Yes, I suppose that is what people will say."
"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?"
"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into men's keeping to work it as they pleased."
"Now, George, that is blasphemy."
"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket Providence," he said, and then he rose to go.
Editha 1905
William Dean Howells
If Muslims are so bad, terrible, awful, etc, why did our Great God create so many of them? Our armed forces have no one left to fight, the cold war is long over. They had to find someone or something to fight, or they'd be out of business, so they chose Muslims. The military business is big money.
While I am no fan of Michelle Bachmann, she made that statement in response to Ron Paul's absurd, irresponsible accusation.
She doesn't JUST hate Muslims. She hates everyone who is not white, Christian, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-teabagger. She's a wack-a-doo of the highest order. And she's wasting her time. She is unelectable (thank goodness). Let her hate who she wants to hate, she is inconsequential.
The Obama-Paul line of accommodation, apology, and appeasement towards radical Islam and Iran. "...for you to say maybe in a year they might have a weapon, there's a lot more saying they don't have it.” The only evidence that Paul will accept is an atomic weapon in Iran's hands. His policy of submission to radical Islam is the blueprint for national suicide for the U.S. I trust Michele Bachmann. She is as smart as a whip and tougher than steel--the little lady with a spine of titanium.
And a brian of stone.
One more country with nukes will not truly matter. America has proven that it will use the bomb. That is the trump card.
Who is Brian?
She's definitely not human - which accounts for the "spine of titanium".
As for being "smart as a whip", well whips are used to inflict punishment, which is what any reasonably moral and sane human being would feel listening to her.
Ron Paul notes that only one case have atomic bombs been used and that was in WW2. Think of the eighties and the red scare panic of nuclear war which has yet to begin. In other words both sides in the Cold War were bluffing
the GOP hates islam and muslims for being muslim this is crazy
but lets say islam as a religion was a major threat to America how would you use federal powers stop them
Michelle Bachmann will never be elected because of lexington/concord New Hampshire, HPV vacine, Elvis' birth day, John Wayne/John Wayne Gacy
I dont hate muslims but dont trust them.Ive also noticed every country that has a lot of them,well they cant assimalate and get along. Just look at other countrys and be honest with yourselves.
How many countries have you visited, ron17571?
hey ron, intolerance = hate, and you've got plenty of both.
Michelle I have talked to over 4,000 of my gay friends and I could not get one of the to go to your clinic, I offered to pay, but still no takers. Michelle, maybe you can attemt to pass a law where all gays have to go one of your clinics before they can be considered to be uncureable. Make the sure that you are well compensated by law for your efforts. Maybe you can become a corporation with lots of the taxpayers money to spend on yourself while collecting agricultural your welfare.