Bachmann's unforced error

Rep. Michele Bachmann says her whatever-it-is that will follow the GOP SOTU response isn’t part of some “competition.”

“This is not a competition,” Bachmann said. “I am very excited about Paul Ryan’s response. I think he’ll do a wonderful job. This was really a reaction that I was giving to people in the tea party,” she told reporters Monday evening after kicking off a series of constitutional seminars the Tea Party Caucus will be holding this year.

“I was extended an invitation by the Tea Party Express to speak to their membership. I never took this as a State of the Union response necessarily,” she said.

Heh, riiiight.  It’s not a SOTU response, it just happens to follow the SOTU and the GOP response on the same night.  Please.  CNN is airing the speech live, so it’s no longer just a web event.  It’s being cast as an alternative to Ryan’s official GOP response and evidence of a party rift, as was easily predictable.  That Bachmann and the Tea Party Express either didn’t foresee how useful their speech would be to the other side, or did see it but didn’t care, doesn’t speak well of them.