Bachmann's Unforced Error

Michele Bachmann's decision to offer a 2nd Republican response to the State of the Union speech was a mistake.  You can see how the media portrayal of her speech gives the impression of a badly divided GOP:

Though Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and her supporters insisted that her speech responding to the State of the Union Tuesday night was not intended to compete with Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s official GOP response, the two speeches struck different tones, and such protestations have been unable to deter the perception that her speech represented a dissenting viewpoint within the Republican Party.

The speech was completely unnecessary, and to complicate matters the technical presentation was bungled as well. TV viewers saw Bachmann looking off to the left of the camera because she chose to address her remarks to the camera that was feeding the Tea Party's online website and not the pool camera that was feeding CNN and the Fox News website. The left had a field day with that, essentially calling her and the Tea Party incompetent because she can't even look into the camera.

It was a bad idea and somebody needs make sure it doesn't happen again.