Wallace began the interview by asking Bachmann if she had any reservations about calling Obama a radical with anti-American views.

WALLACE: Again, I guess the question is a matter of rhetoric — anti-American, the most radical. You don’t have any problem saying that?

BACHMANN: I think these policies are among the most radical we have ever seen in the history of the country. I mean, clearly, the country has never gone this far in taking over this much of the private economy. And it is changing the way that we’re doing business in the United States forever. And I don’t think it’s going in a good direction.

WALLACE: But can it — obviously, you strongly — and a lot of Americans strongly disagree with the president’s policies. Can’t you disagree with his policies without saying that he’s anti-American?

BACHMANN: Well, I didn’t say that he was anti-American when I was on Sean Hannity’s show. That is — I said that his policies are radical. And I think they are.

The full exchange can be viewed here:

Bachmann made similar comments on Chris Matthews’ Hardball in October 2008, but quickly distanced herself from her own statement.

“I did not say that Barack Obama was anti-American, nor do I believe Barack Obama is anti-American. He loves his country, just as everyone in this room does,” she told the Rotary Club in St. Cloud at the time. “Nor did I call for an investigation of members of Congress for their pro-American or anti-American views. That is not what I said.”

“This is a gross distortion of what I said,” she told the St. Cloud Times editorial board. “That is not what I believe and that isn’t what I said and that isn’t what I stand for.”

“My parents taught me when I was little, if you make a mistake, own up to it,” she said. “I wish I had not used that phrase. …I do not question his patriotism, what I do question are his ideas.”

But Bachmann brought that phrase back at the Susan B. Anthony List event on Wednesday evening, where she shared the stage with Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Her 2008 comments generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to her opponent, El Tinklenberg. And Tinklenberg is hoping Bachmann latest comments will do the same for Tarryl Clark, a Democrat running for the DFL endorsement to take on Bachmann.

He sent out this fundraising pitch on Thursday afternoon:

I just received a call from my friend Tarryl Clark – the candidate who is going to beat Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in 2010 – with some disturbing news.

We all remember Michele Bachmann’s comments in 2008, when she said she was “very concerned” that President Obama “may have anti-American views” and called for an investigation into Members of Congress to find out whether they are “pro-America or anti-America.”

Well, speaking at a closed-press event last night, Michele Bachmann said, “I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views. And now I look like Nostradamus.”

HELP ME HELP TARRYL CLARK DEFEAT MICHELE BACHMANN TODAY

We need to put an end to this kind of fear-mongering from Michele Bachmann and her right-wing allies, which we’re already seeing incite hatred and violence across the country in recent days.

In 2008, you rallied to my side and flooded our campaign with the resources necessary to take Bachmann on. Today, I need you to do the same for Tarryl Clark so that she can beat Michele Bachmann and send a message that Minnesota’s 6th District is tired of her rhetoric and ready for real leadership in Congress.

DONATE TODAY AND LET’S RETIRE MICHELE BACHMANN

Thanks for everything you do.

That’s the conclusion of Eric Ostermeier, who blogs at Smart Politics for the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Ostermeier counted Bachmann’s appearances on cable shows since she took office in 2007. That first year: zero appearances. Over the past year: 43 appearances.

So by Ostermeier’s reckoning, Bachmann is on national TV every nine days. At that rate, you can set your Tivo for next Thursday and have a good shot at catching the representative from Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District.

And at that rate, isn’t Bachmann proving she could handle her own weekly show, a la Huckabee?

By the way, Ostermeier confirms what you may suspect: Bachmann is increasingly leaning toward right-leaning networks like Fox. She hasn’t, for example, shown her face on MSNBC since Oct. 17, 2008, the day she told Chris Matthews of her suspicions about colleagues in Congress harboring “anti-American” beliefs.

Her latest appearance, as of this writing, was Tuesday, when she told Fox News host Sean Hannity that reforming the nation’s health care system is unconstitutional.

All that airtime is not an accident; it’s by design. Bachmann has mobilized an exceptionally large squadron of public-relations staffers to pursue “an aggressive plan” for more media exposure. Among other benefits, Ostermeier figures that strategy is reaping Bachmann campaign-fundraising rewards.

Bachmann’s conversion earns pride of place because it’s the sharpest and most succinct. Her take on the Democratic president-elect evolved from being “very concerned that he may have anti-American views” on Oct. 17 to “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year” on Thursday. Only two days after the election, Bachmann was already casting herself in a new role among his cheering throngs: Obama’s victory is “a tremendous signal that we have sent,” she told Politico.

But the political calculation required for a reversal of Bachmann’s verdict on Obama wasn’t in evidence on Election Night, a review of video from the vaults of the Minnesota Independent and The UpTake indicates. The only thing she had to say about Obama came in the first line of her victory speech, about her Democratic challenger’s dashed desire to serve with him:

I just had a phone call with my opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, and he graciously wished me well and said he wished he could be in Washington, D.C., working with the president-elect.

Bachmann’s was an opinion that changed, but not immediately on Election Night and not overnight either. (The Times article erroneously date-stamps her Politico statements as being made on Nov. 5.)

There was, however, a clue on Oct. 16, the day before Bachmann’s “anti-American” accusations. Bachmann made this statement to reporters after a candidate debate, when her re-election was still considered a waltz: “If the presidency would somehow go to Barack Obama, I would welcome him to the 6th District as well. As a matter of fact, I would put my hand on his shoulder and give him a kiss if he wanted to.” As if she’s an actor in her own play, Bachmann delivers a line that both foreshadows her post-election conversion to Obama’s side and harkens back to the death-grip smooch she gave President George W. Bush at his State of the Union address in 2007 — when she first made her inimitable presence felt on the national stage.

UPDATE: Commenter Karl below provides a link to Bachmann’s Nov. 5 appearance on conservative radio host Mark Levin’s syndicated program. The audio offers insight into her thinking on the day between Election Night and her Politico interview. Here it is:

Video after the jump.

Apologies — a technical glitch that cut off the very end of Bachmann’s speech and her exit from the stage amid more raucous cheering.

A new mailer sent out by the Alliance for a Better Minnesota accuses Republicans Michele Bachmann and Norm Coleman of being distracted from the work of “finding solutions to the most difficult economic crisis facing America since the Great Depression.”

But Bachmann gets the sharpest jab: Instead of dealing with the financial meltdown she’s “questioning people’s patriotism.” The flyer prominently features a quote and image of Gen. Colin Powell who, referring to Bachmann’s infamous comments on “Hardball,” said, “We have got to stop this kind of nonsense and remember that our great strength is in our unity and our diversity.”

Got a piece of political mail you think we’d like to hear about it? Send it our way.

In the ad, Bachmann says “I may not always get my words right, but I know that my heart is right. Because my heart is for you, for your children and for the blessings of liberty to remain for our great country.”

At the Washington Post, Chris Cizilla gives his take on the apology that wasn’t:

Why does the ad feel strange? Because Bachmann is trying to do two very different things at once. For those people who are aware of the “Hardball” incident, she wants to express remorse for what she said. For those people who have no idea about the “Hardball” imbroglio, Bachmann wants to make sure it stays that way and so makes no direct reference to why she would be apologizing for not always using the right words to explain herself.

Meanwhile, a second Bachmann ad debuted on Saturday, this one attacking El Tinklenberg from his days as transportation commissioner under Gov. Jesse Ventura. Bachmann takes Tinklenberg to task for “no-bid” contracts while running the department.

Survey USA cautions that the poll is a snapshot from a volatile race that – with Tinklenberg’s lead within the margin of error — appears to be essentially tied. Indeed, the contest continues to develop as a national story on the news of Bachmann’s Oct. 19 remarks on MSNBC’s “Hardball” show. (On Friday MPR will release results from its own poll of 6th District voters’ current take on the race.) The day before Bachmann told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and possibly others in Congress held “anti-American” views, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released results of a survey taken Oct. 10–12 showing Bachmann with a narrow 42–38 lead.

In the poll released Thursday, women preferred Tinklenberg to Bachmann by a wider margin (53 percent to 41 percent) than men favored Bachmann over Tinklenberg (48–42). Tinklenberg takes 51 percent of independent voters to Bachmann’s 35 percent. And the DFLer gets the support of more Democrats (87 percent) than Bachmann does Republicans (79 percent).

That last figure demonstrates that Republican support for Bachmann has dropped by 9 percentage points from where it stood two years ago, as reported in a poll that Survey USA took for KSTP-TV on Oct. 24–26, 2006, just days before Bachmann won election to her first term in Congress.

Major media are reporting that Survey USA conducted this week’s poll on Monday and Tuesday, but that’s incorrect. It turns out it was actually Tuesday and Wednesday, meaning that some respondents gave pollsters their voting preference when the controversy over Bachmann’s “anti-American” statements and re-statements had had yet another 24-hour news cycle in which to curdle.

The problem: Survey USA’s original report listed two different date ranges (Oct. 20–21 and Oct. 21–22) as the period over which the poll was conducted. Jay Leve, an official at the polling organization, issued this clarification early Friday in response to a Minnesota Independent query:

SurveyUSA apologizes for the confusion. Data collected 10/21/08 + 10/22/08. Poll released 10/23/08. The incorrect reference has been changed.

Stillwater's Joyce Finney: "She represents the district I live in, but she sure doesn’t represent my feelings about things."

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s recent Hardball blowup has undoubtedly endangered her re-election prospects. The freshman legislator’s assertion that there should be an investigation into whether Barack Obama and other members of Congress hold “anti-American” views has become one of the top political stories in the country. Her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has raised $1.3 million in less than a week and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has committed to a seven-figure ad buy in the district. The most recent blow: the National Republican Congressional Committee decided to pull its TV spots from the 6th District.

But what do constituents in the 6th Congressional District think of Bachmann’s latest episode of foot-in-mouth disease? On Tuesday afternoon Chris Steller and I ventured into the northern suburbs to speak with voters about the controversy and their feelings regarding Bachmann.

We traveled first to Stillwater, on the eastern edge of the district, where Bachmann first rose to political prominence by winning a state House race in 2000. The anti-Bachmann chorus was unanimous. “Nutcase,” said Scott Zahren, owner of the Alesci Furniture Gallery. “I’m serious. It almost makes you embarrassed to be an American.”

Joyce Finney was slightly less caustic in her take. “I don’t feel like she represents me,” Finney said. “She represents the district I live in, but she sure doesn’t represent my feelings about things.”

We then traveled across the 6th Congressional District to Anoka. The view on Bachmann and her recent outburst was much more sanguine among the folks we encountered there. “I think she’s a little outspoken, but I think she’s got good values,” said Monica Schnack, who teaches at the Elim Christian Learning Center in Anoka. “I think she’s for the people. I think she’s trying to help.”

Paula Dwyer, whose vehicle sported a McCain-Palin bumper sticker, endorsed Bachmann’s views about the Democratic presidential contender. “As far as what she said about Obama being anti-American, I think you have to wonder, too,” she said. “He just hasn’t been out there in front of America for very long at all.”

Others simply expressed disgust at all politicians. “I won’t even vote any more,” said Eric Krueger. “I don’t even trust out government. I think they’re all crooks.”