A sure sign that Rep. Michele Bachmann has a recognizable national profile: Jay Leno has made her the brunt of a monologue joke.

The "Tonight Show" host cracked Thursday night: "Happy St. Patrick's everybody. Or as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann calls it, the day we celebrate George Washington driving the snakes aacross the Potomac River."

OK, not exactly a side-splitter. But the audience ate it up, presumably having heard of Bachmann's garbling of Revolutionary War history last Saturday while on a campaign stop in New Hampshire, site of the first presidential primary next year (no, she hasn't said whether she's running).

According to a local TV station, Bachmann told activists, "you're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

Those cities happen to be down the road in Massachusetts, also home of Boston's harbor where the original Tea Party was held; these days, Bachmann is a darling of conservative activists who adopted that moniker.