Behold, Michele Bachmann at her very best. Sometimes she puts Sarah Palin to shame with her unbeatable capacity for intellectual dishonesty and wide-eyed idiocy. Here is one such instance.

MODERATOR: I got a lot of questions from people asking is it fair for you to call for dismantling federal programs you ultimately have been a beneficiary of? So in terms of guaranteeing home mortgages, do you think the federal government has a role in that…?

BACHMANN: Now unlike all of you, who I’m sure pay cash for your homes, there are people out there like myself who actually have to go to a bank and get a mortgage. And this is the problem. It’s almost impossible to buy a home in this country today without the federal government being involved. Whether it is with the FHA, whether it’s with Fannie, whether it’s with Freddie, it’s almost impossible to buy a home…What’s important is that we do dismantle a number of these federal programs that everyone agrees are clearly out of control.

The question stems from a Washington Post report that she and her husband took out a loan in 2008 which is likely guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac so they could move up to the country club set.

Bachmann’s mortgage was part of a package of debt that she and her husband, Marcus, assumed to buy their home, public records show. They also have other loans, including a home equity line of credit, a business mortgage and another business loan for their Christian counseling clinics, bringing their liabilities to more than $1 million, according to the most recently available public records.

I'm really trying to follow Bachmann's logic here. Is she saying that if these federal programs were dismantled some other "free market" for mortgage lending would crop up? Does she not understand that the reason Fannie and Freddie exist is to mitigate credit risk for banks? Without these programs (which admittedly do have problems) banks simply wouldn't lend, which is what we're seeing now.

I might have more respect for these Birch conservatives if they weren't so baldly hypocritical about what they do, as opposed to what they say.

Think Progress:

Bachmann’s disapproval of federal home loan programs obviously didn’t stop her from using them to buy an enormous house for herself. During recent campaign stops, Bachmann has bragged that her family simply “did without” government aid when times were tough, but apparently this time they couldn’t help themselves.

Yeah, that country club home was just screaming for a federal loan guarantee so the Bachmanns could live there, but you know, god forbid some young person, veteran, or middle class family might need one.