Bachmann up for 'Lie of the Year'

By Baird Helgeson

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is up against President Obama and Glenn Beck for an award -- just probably not one they want to win.

A Bachmann statement about the proposed health care overhaul is one of eight contenders for PolitiFact's "Lie of the year" award. The political fact-checking division of the St. Petersburg Times chose what it considers falsehoods that "reached all-star status and played an important role in the nation's political discourse."

According to PolitiFact, here is Bachmann's contender: Page 92 of the U.S. House health care bill "says specifically that people can't purchase private health insurance after a date certain."

PolitiFact rated the statement: "Pants on Fire."

PolitiFact invites readers to vote on the most important lie (they do ask for your name and e-mail address). Along with Bachmann's comment, here are the other nominees:

"When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft."
-- Joe Biden on Thursday, April 30, 2009, in an interview on The Today Show

"You lie!" (in response to President Obama saying health reform would not insure illegal immigrants.)
-- Joe Wilson on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, in the audience at a joint session of Congress

Seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
-- Sarah Palin on Friday, Aug. 7, 2009, in a message posted on Facebook

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, "has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
-- Glenn Beck on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, in his TV program

An amendment to the House health reform bill "puts new restrictions on women's access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market even when they would pay premiums with their own money."
-- Nita Lowey on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, in a speech on the House floor