When Bachmann is back running for her House Seat will she get the same scrutiny?

Now that it seems like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is starting to fade from the 2012 Republican presidential race, it brings me to a question I've been wondering about since around May or so.  Will Minnesota's media put the same spotlight on what she says that the national media did?  Or will our state's media go back to their business-as-usual mode of ignoring the lies, conspiracy theories and fear-mongering?

For years, Minnesota's media simply refused to report what she actually said.  Eric Black's mea culpa just about sums it all up.

To my own shame and regret, I didn't write about the kerfuffle for the next day's paper. When I did write about it, a year later, I offered various explanations/excuses for my delay, which I don't repeat here except to say that they were lame.

Aside from Black I doubt any other MN journalist feels any shame for their shoddy journalism.

To examine this from another angle, Kevin Diaz and Eric Roper of the Minneapolis Star Tribune are still unable to call a lie a lie when it comes to Bachmann.

In Diaz's article Sunday before last about her HPV Vaccine gaffe, he continually refers to this whole episode as a "gaffe."  He also refers to her recent "gaffes."

Yes, Michele Bachmann has a problem with gaffes.  But her gaffes are like the following:

She confused New Hampshire with Massachusetts as the place where the American Revolution started.

She says she's for freedom of choice ... when it comes to light bulbs.

The controversy surrounding the lie she passed as fact concerning HPV Vaccine is not a gaffe.  She passed along unsubstantiated information and she should have known better.  It's not a gaffe, it's a history of disregard for the truth.

Was it a gaffe when she claimed that our Founding Father's worked hard to eliminate slavery?  Or just ignorance combined with a willful disregard for the truth.  Was it a lie when she doubled down on her original lie and tried to claim that she was referring to John Quincy Adams who was merely a boy when our country was founded?  Or just a gaffe?

If this happened every once in a while, that's one thing.  Mispronouncing someone's name, getting dates mixed up, stumbling over your words or getting a few facts wrong every once in a while are gaffes.

But Bachmann is a unrepentant and habitual liar.  I created the Michele Bachmann Bizarro World to organize her lying, fear-mongering and bigotry in a way to show the pattern of her utter disregard for the truth.  

Sadly, I can't see the Strib, Minnpost nor any other media source, outside of occasional articles from MPR, analyzing the truth and accuracy of what Michele Bachmann says.  I'm worried we'll just go back to the bad old days of ignoring her and on rare occasions downplaying her lies through euphemisms.