As Ben Domenech writes on Twitter, “This is like Captain Insane-o territory. Holy cow.”

From Bachmann’s “Today Show” appearance this morning:

“I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Fla., after the debate. She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter,” Bachmann said.

She continued: “The mother was crying when she came up to me last night. I didn’t know who she was before the debate. This is the very real concern and people have to draw their own conclusions.”

The criticism being lobbed at Rick Perry for promoting a Gardasil mandate is understandable. And it’s also understandable some people would choose not to take it because it’s such a new vaccine and the long-term effects haven’t been exhaustively studied. But to insinuate it may cause “mental retardation” (by the way, hasn’t that been considered a pejorative term for at least the last decade?) is completely baseless fear-mongering. Is Bachmann going to take a political stance against fluoridated water next? MMR immunizations?

Her attacks on Perry last night about the HPV issue were strong. There was absolutely no need to take it to another extreme.