US Campaign 2012: How Michele Bachmann Confused John Wayne with a Killer Clown

Michele Bachmann is the new darling of many Republicans in the Presidential race for 2012. The Congresswoman was once distinguished by flamboyant remarks such as, "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence." (The 1976 swine flu scare, which had a sequel in 2009, occurred during the Presidency of Republican Gerald Ford.)

Now, however, Bachmann seems to be been tagged a contender --- she wanted to treated "more seriously than Sarah Palin", according to the BBC --- for the GOP nomination. This appears to have occurred because she trumped six Republican male candidates in the first debate with lines like "As president of the United States, I will not rest until I repeal Obamacare."

Still, the Congresswoman can slip back into her old verbal ways. On Sunday, as she launched her Presidential campaign in front of her childhood home, she told Fox News, "I want [people] to know just like John Wayne is from Waterloo, Iowa, that's the spirit I have too. It's embracing America. It's sacrificing for America."

Only one problem: Marion Mitchell Morrison, later renamed John Wayne, was born 150 miles away in Winterset, Iowa.

Serial murderer John Wayne Gacy, known as the "Killer Clown", lived and worked in Bachmann's native town of Waterloo.