|
 |
 |
|
Bachmann: Obama 'clearly wrong' to end use of waterboarding
Michele Bachmann said Monday that President Obama was "clearly wrong" in calling waterboarding "torture" and unnecessary to fighting the war on terror.
"No one died from the use of waterboarding. Is it uncomfortable? Yes, it's uncomfortable. But our worry should not be the comfort level of terrorists," Bachmann said Monday on Fox News.
The Minnesota congresswoman had attacked the president over the weekend for discontinuing the practice, saying that it effectively led to the ACLU running the CIA. But Obama defended his decision at a press conference Saturday in Hawaii.
“We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism,” Obama continued. “If we want to lead around the world, part of our leadership is setting a good example. And anybody who has actually read about and understands the practice of waterboarding would say that that is torture and that’s not something we do. Period.”
Bachmann went on to defend her lagging poll numbers — she has fallen to the low single digits in a spate of recent national surveys — as irrelevant to a contest that will be decided on a state-by-state basis.
"If there's anything we've learned from this election it is how fluid the numbers are," Bachmann said. "This is very fluid; we have a very strong chance here [in Iowa]; we're doing well in South Carolina."
But she refused to say whether she would leave the race if she could not place in the top three in Iowa, her home state. Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll this summer, but has been steadily declining in the polls since that.
"What we're looking at is who can best save this country," Bachmann said.
She went on to take subtle swipes at her leading Republican competitors.
"Our nominee has to stand and debate President Obama; I have the ability to be able to do that," Bachmann said. "Our candidate can't be compromised; we have candidates that are compromised on the individual healthcare mandate."
Most Viewed RSS Feed »
