Bachmann: World better off without Gadhafi

Republican presidential primary contender Michele Bachmann said Thursday that the world is better off without Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. But she said she stands by her position that the U.S. military shouldn't have gotten involved.

The Minnesota congresswoman offered a brief comment on Gadhafi's death Thursday before a speech on government regulation and innovation at a San Francisco campaign event.

"It is my hope that Gadhafi's reign of terror will be replaced with a government that respects its people in Libya and one that will be a good partner with the United States," Bachmann said.

"Hopefully, today will also bring to an end our military involvement in Libya, something that I have opposed from its beginning."

Bachmann invoked Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as she praised what she described as the nation's competitive spirit as the engine of U.S.-led technological innovation. Too much government involvement in the private sector has hampered that competitiveness and hindered entrepreneurship, she said.

Her standing-room-only appearance at the famously liberal city's historic Commonwealth Club occurred without incident except for some hisses when Bachmann criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Bachmann said Occupy protesters want more government involvement in the economy while tea party members want less. She joked that tea partyers picked up their trash after their demonstrations.

The Iowa straw poll winner had several private fundraising events planned in the San Francisco Bay area before she returned to Iowa this weekend to campaign.

In answer to an audience question in San Francisco, Bachmann criticized rival Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax plan as granting too much leeway to Congress.

"You open a new pipeline of taxations, Congress will very quickly widen it," she said.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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