For someone who is claiming to once again be an Iowan, Michele Bachmann may need to brush up a bit on her Iowa history. During a Fox News interview from her birthplace of Waterloo, Bachmann claimed that film icon John Wayne (Winterset born) shared her Black Hawk County lineage. Unfortunately she mixed up her John Waynes:

Mrs. Bachmann grew up in Waterloo, and used the town as the backdrop for her campaign announcement, where she told Fox News: “Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.” (Someone has already posted the clip to YouTube under the name BachmannLovesGacy)

John Wayne, the movie legend, is in fact from Iowa and the John Wayne birthplace is a celebrated landmark — only it’s in Winterset, which is a nearly three hour drive away from Waterloo.

Gacy, though, had his first taste of the criminal life in Waterloo, where he lived for a short time, and where he had his first criminal conviction for an attempted homosexual assault, which landed him in prison for 18 months.

He would move back to Illinois, where his killing spree started, and lasted about six years. In 1980 he was convicted on 33 counts of murder, and was executed in 1994.

Not exactly a stirring selling point for Waterloo tourism, nor Bachmann, the “seventh generation Iowan.”

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Apparently my Microsoft Paint skills aren’t very solid, so a kindly reader submitted this mash-up of Waterloo’s “heroes” past and present:

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