Just when you think you’ve reached the top and are a virtual shoe-in for election, or re-election, there comes a “macaca” moment that brings you down.

Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has spent months building her profile through appearances on CNN’s "Larry King Live," FOX News’s “The O’Reilly Factor” and even CNBC “Squawk Box,” but one swipe at Barack Obama for possibly being “anti-American” got her even more press attention – and maybe not for the better.

“The liberals that are Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers are over-the-top anti-American … remember it was Michelle Obama who said she was only recently proud of her country. Those are anti-American views,” Bachmann said on a recent appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

Most Americans are very proud of America, she added, and “they’re very concerned about a president who doesn’t share those values.”

After quite a bit of baiting by “Hardball” host Chris Matthews, Bachmann said: “I’m very concerned he may have anti-American views, that’s what the American people are concerned about.”

“If people like that [Wright, and others] were John McCain’s mentors, you’d be all over John McCain.”

When Matthews asked her exactly how many U.S. congressmen and -women are “anti-American,” she responded: “I think the news media should do a penetrating exposé … at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they’re pro-America, or anti-America.”

Matthews told Politico.com that one of his bookers called John McCain’s presidential campaign early Friday for help in filling his Friday afternoon interview slot. Matthews said it was the campaign who offered up the ever-willing, media-loving Bachmann. 

But since that interview, AP reports, Bachmann found herself fending off criticism from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. Her election opponent, Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg, also received an influx of $810,000 in donations within 72 hours after Bachmann’s MSNBC appearance.

Bachmann has been favored to win a second term. But Democrats hate her for pushing a gay marriage ban while a state legislator, pressing conservative views on oil drilling and other issues. So now, smelling blood, national Democrats on Monday said they would pour $1 million into TV ads in her district, which is in the area from the Twin Cities northwest to St. Cloud.

She told WCCO-TV in Minneapolis that her comments about Obama were misread.

"I feel his views are concerning, and I’m calling on the media to investigate them," Bachmann told the station. "I’m not saying that his views are anti-American. That was a misreading of what I said."

A Bachmann spokeswoman said the campaign is bracing for an onslaught of attacks, and may increase its own advertising campaign.