If this is true, it could sink Bachmann’s presidential run. But I’m skeptical. Here’s a chunk of the Daily Caller’s story, which they play up for maximum effect before the Big Reveal on what Bachmann actually suffers from, from the title suggesting “heavy pill use” on to the sensationalistic writing:
In late July 2010, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s then-communications director, Dave Dziok, told his boss that he planned to take a new job with the public relations firm Edelman.
Dziok had worked for Bachmann for two and a half years, a relatively long period by the standards of her office, and was leaving on good terms.
Staff turnover can frustrate any employer, but Bachmann responded more dramatically. Dziok’s departure triggered a debilitating medical episode that landed the congresswoman in urgent care.
“Within 24 hours she was in the hospital,” a former aide says.
Bachmann was admitted to a Washington, D.C. hospital on Friday, July 30, and released that same day. She flew home to Minnesota to recuperate, missing a scheduled campaign event with Sen. Roy Blunt.
It’s “nothing folks should worry about going forward,” Dziok told reporters at the time, refusing to specify why Bachmann had been hospitalized.
It was, according to three people who have worked closely with Bachmann, not an isolated event.
The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.
The DC’s story, written by Jonathan Strong, goes on to allege that Bachmann’s migraines render her incapacitated and that three of them have sent her to the hospital. But one of the hospital episodes is presumably the July 30, 2010 episode, and she was in and out of the hospital the same day for that one. And where is the evidence that she gets hit with a migraine “weekly”? Migraines can definitely be incapacitating, there’s no question about that. If that happened to Bachmann weekly, though, you would expect frequent cancellations on the talk shows she appears on and frequent event cancellations, and following that, rumors of why that’s occurring. So far, I haven’t seen anything like that. Other than this story, of course. And it’s not as though having medical conditions has rendered past presidents unable to do their jobs. Some have, some haven’t, and most were covered up at the time.
I suppose we should be grateful to some extent for The DC’s story; if even half of it is true, it tells us more about Bachmann than we know about Obama even though he has been in office for years. And like Don Surber, I’d take her with the worst migraines over Obama any day.
Update: Ed Morrissey calls the DC article a “hit piece.” Absent real evidence that anything it says is true, that’s what it looks like to me too.
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