EDITED:

It’s her taking the bait from Blitzer, whose sole task up there was to try to get Republican candidates to slaughter each other and turn attention away from President Obama and the Democrats. If the issue is personal freedom and limited government, is there anyone left in the US who has doubts about which party is more trustworthy on the issue?

"sole task". Did he really say that? In print?

Candidate Bachmann shoots herself in the foot by injecting loony tunes ideology into a routine pubic health question and suddenly its proof of a leftist media conspiracy to undermine western civilization? Bachmann's position is, at worst, an error of judgment on her part, at best, her personal position which can be debated amongst fellow conservatives. Blitzer asked her a question designed to get her to stick her neck out and start a controversy, on a topic she brought up. Blitzer did what any good reporter does, improvised a good follow up question.

C'mon Jerry. He gets paid to do that, everyone in that room knows that is the only reason he is there. It's his job. Perhaps you would have preferred he change the subject to avoid the participants further embarrassment?

"she let herself be goaded into an all-out attack on Perry". Jerry, puh-leeze. Just listen to yourself.

It is pretty obvious that Bachman came fully prepared for this moment. She had certainly done her homework and was planning on ambushing Perry on this issue. She was ready to take him apart on what she felt was a big vulnerability on his part. So she fumbles her attack and suddenly its all the liberal media's fault?

Actually, I've heard other pundits who disagree with Pournelle, and interpret the exchange as having gone in Bachmann's favor.

Is there anyone left in the US who has doubts about which party is more paranoid? And can there be any doubt that the ideological compulsion to attack the press even when it allegedly delivers bad news (or in this case, provokes a Conservative into revealing it) can only be a step away from a determination to monitor and control the press so it only tells us what they want us to hear.

Maybe Paranoid Pournelle should stick to what he's good at, writing space opera. His political fiction is too scary for me.