Michele Bachmann, finally conceding that her plan to "defund ObamaCare" is impossible:

Unless the president and Harry Reid agree with us, there isn’t a way for us to have defunded Obamacare. ... I talked to a special appropriations guy because I was sick about it...the only way we could do it is if Obama and Harry Reid agreed with what we wanted to do.

Of course, that wasn't what Michele Bachmann was saying before the election. Before the election, she was promising her fellow teahadists that if Republicans won the House, they could kill health care reform simply by defunding it, with or without the support of President Obama or Harry Reid. Here's what she said last July:

We have the power of the purse - so we can starve ObamaCare. We don't have to fund any of these programs and that's exactly what we need to do - defund all of this nonsense and then unwind it.

Sounded good, except she was completely wrong. Health care reform wasn't established as a discretionary program. That means it's not dependent on annual appropriations bills, so you can't simply defund it.

This was obvious at the time, but it didn't stop Bachmann from making the false promise to her teahadist fan base that "defunding" was a viable approach to repealing health care reform. She even kept up the charade after the election, perpetuating the myth that House Republicans could defund health care reform:

Dec. 10, 2010: It’s imperative that we in the House completely defund Obamacare. Jan. 7, 2011: We want to fully defund this bill so that, like, it would be akin to a helium balloon that gets no helium inside so that it can’t take off the ground, and that’s what we’re planning to do. Jan. 7, 2011: You will see the membership all behind defunding Obamacare, because that’s what we’re hearing from the people back home. They want us to repeal Obamacare. And this is the next best thing, which is defunding Obamacare. ... we have to defund Obamacare Jan. 19, 2011: We’re staying full square behind the repeal of ‘Obamacare’ and our commitment to defund it moving forward. Feb. 8, 2011: I think Republicans are planning to bring forth a bold move, and that would be an amendment to defund Obamacare. If we can deliver on effectively repealing Obamacare for the next two years, that's a huge get. (Source: Fox News broadcast)

And now, one week after she last claimed it was possible to "effectively repeal" health care reform by defunding it, Michele Bachmann is admitting that her plan won't work -- something she should have known all along. It's no wonder teahadists are so cynical about government: their favorite representatives don't know the first thing about how it works.