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Bachmann says Obama is "waving a tar baby"

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(CBS News) Rep. Michele Bachmann charged the president with caring only about his re-election. She also called him "irresponsible" and "infantile" for failing to address the economy and energy prices.

"This is just about waving a tar baby in the air," Bachmann told a conservative Florida website The Shark Tank in a video interview. "The president is a complete and utter fraud and a hypocrite on this issue, with all due respect," she said, referring to the president's energy policy.

Bachmann has come under fire for using the term "tar baby," which is a phrase that denotes a sticky situation and refers to a children's story, the Brer Rabbit. However, the term is also considered derogatory toward African Americans.

Bachmann's spokesperson Becky Rogness says in a Thursday email that Bachmann made a point about Obama's understanding of oil prices that has "nothing to do with race." Instead, Rogness says Obama "has gotten himself into a sticky situation."

Throughout the interview, Bachmann's hit the president hard, calling him "infantile."

"I have never seen a more irresponsible president who is infantile in the way he continually blames everybody else for his failure to first diagnose the problem and second to address the problem," Bachmann said.

She charged him with being focused on one thing. "All you have to know about President Obama is filtered through a grid called his re-election. Everything he does. It has nothing to do with priorities of the country. It has nothing to do with turning around the economy," Bachmann said. (Watch the interview below.)


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