Rep. Michele Bachmann threw her support behind an anti-abortion activist on Thursday who made undercover videos of a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Jersey. Bachmann said the video, and the fact that Planned Parenthood offers abortion as part of its services, should result in a ban on federal grants for the reproductive health chain.

“Planned Parenthood performed 324,000 abortions in 2010. That should be enough reason to ensure that it never receives another taxpayer dollar from our government,” Bachmann said. “But alarming new revelations about Planned Parenthood raise questions about whether the organization is breaking the law.”

Bachmann was referring to a video released by LiveAction, an anti-abortion group that specializes in ambushing Planned Parenthood clinics, that appears to show a Planned Parenthood staffer in New Jersey telling a pimp and his prostitute how to obtain services for girls as young as 14.

“Live Action has turned its video over to law enforcement authorities, including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder,” Bachmann said in a statement. “I am calling on those authorities to fully investigate this case and to prosecute any offenders to the fullest extent of the law.”

But Planned Parenthood beat LiveAction to it. After the group, posing as a pimp and prostitute showed up at a half-dozen clinics across the country, Planned Parenthood called the FBI to report a potential sex-ring involving minors.

And, the group fired the staffer in New Jersey who provided advice on circumventing the law.

“The Planned Parenthood staff member reacted professionally to a highly unusual person posing as a patient,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement. “After the encounter, the staff member immediately notified her supervisor, who subsequently notified members of Planned Parenthood’s national security team, who are working with the FBI, which is investigating these visits.”

As the New Jersey Star Ledger editorial board pointed out, the sting in New Jersey merely found a bad employee, not rampant corruption in the organization.

At least a dozen clinics in six states were visited in January by men claiming to be involved in sex trafficking, Planned Parenthood officials said. Each time, employees notified authorities. Planned Parenthood also said it sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Jan. 18 with concerns about sex trafficking and a possible hoax.

Ambush journalism makes entertaining YouTube moments, but rarely proves a larger point. ACORN was exonerated. A video targeting the teachers union in New Jersey relied heavily on the words of one tipsy teacher. And Live Action actors found a lousy employee, that’s all.

“Michelle Bachmann has betrayed the Tea Party movement,” wrote Bateman in a statement on his campaign website. “Bachmann showed her true colors in that she is nothing more than a politician using the Tea Party movement for her own advancement. She has shown her lack of principles and integrity by supporting Chris Smith who has clearly been ignoring the Constitution as evidenced by his voting record.”

Bateman has the backing of the North New Jersey Tea Party Group and won a Bayshore Tea Party straw poll vote earning him an endorsement.

“Michelle Bachmann is a typical politician in putting politics over principle,” he said. “This is what they do in Washington. The party circles the wagons around sitting members regardless of that Congressman’s record.”

Here’s audio of Bachmann’s robo-call.

Bachmann’s support for Smith has garnered criticism from several Tea Party bloggers. Garden State Patriot called the move a “disappointment” and said Bachmann was a “shill” for Smith. The libertarian candidate in the race, Joe Siano, penned this letter to Bachmann’s office then posted it to Resistnet.com:

Dear Madam,

I am a NJ District 4 voter and I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that you have endorsed our Congressman, Chris Smith.

I have cheered for you at Tea Party rallies because I thought that you were a true believer in conservative values. If the Tea Party movement means anything, it means an end to business-as-usual politics where party trumps principle.

Smith is a classic “progressive” Republican. He voted for Cap and Trade, sponsored Card Check, has voted for tax increases and bailouts and is unsupportive of Second Amendment rights. It because of politicians like him, that I cannot be a Republican.

We have a Constitutional Conservative Republican running in the Primary against Smith. His name is Alan Bateman. I suggest that you check him out ASAP and publicly correct your misplaced endorsement of Smith before the polls open tomorrow.

Just to fair, let me disclose that I am the Libertarian Party candidate in this District. Naturally, I’ll be voting for myself come November. Nonetheless, I want you to understand that Bateman is a far better choice to represent the freedom loving people of District 4 than Congressman Smith.

Sincerely,
Joe Siano

In backing Republican Coleman’s constitutional arguments, the WSJ recycles its earlier warning about Minnesota being another Florida (a la 2000′s Bush v. Gore recount fiasco) and tosses in more geographic name-calling for good measure:

And there have been plenty of irregularities. By the end of the recount, the state was awash with evidence of duplicate ballot counting, newly discovered ballots, missing ballots, illegal voting, and wildly diverse standards as to which votes were counted. Any one of these issues was enough to throw the outcome into doubt. Combined, they created a taint more worthy of New Jersey than Minnesota.

The Bemidji Pioneer likewise leans Coleman’s way (the paper endorsed him in 1998, 2002 and 2008) but is ready with strong medicine for the former senator about accepting Democrat Al Franken’s election:

Sen. Coleman’s appeals were necessary and a legal part of the process. But at some point, incessant appeals serve no more than to obstruct the process than to guarantee justice. … The public perception at this point appears not to be one of letting Sen. Coleman fully seek redress of his legal grievances, but rather one of obstructing the Democrat-controlled Senate to prevent it from reaching that magic number of 60 votes. … To continue to obstruct doesn’t bode well for Minnesota, nor for Sen. Coleman’s career, should he continue in politics. It’s time to come home, Norm.

Interestingly, the Pioneer sees the process breaking against both men:

At this point, we seriously doubt the credibility of either Sen. Coleman or Mr. Franken to have a productive Senate tenure for the remaining 5½ years — which could become less should Sen. Coleman continue to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could decide not to hear the case until it convenes in October after a summer break.

The word “credibility” is suddenly popping up in the Coleman-Franken fracas just as the tips of tulips are breaking through the chilly Minnesota soil. Coleman himself used it while holding court with the Star Tribune editorial board:

No matter who wins, one side is going to pound the other side and question the credibility of the winner. If I win, I’ll be shot at by those who say, “Is he legitimate?”

Coleman’s comment, posted and published over the weekend, is in tune with this statement from the same session, released by the Strib last week: “We will never know who won.”

According to the tally kept at MinnPost’s Braublog, newspaper editorials now stand at — you guessed it — a tie, for and against Coleman’s imminent appeal to the state Supreme Court. That’s not counting such out-of-state interlopers as the WSJ, the New York Times, the Las Vegas Sun and the Jamestown (S.D.) Sun.