Rep. Michele Bachmann is backing off a provocative assertion she made at her "nation of slaves" speech last Friday at a conservative gathering in Colorado, where she claimed the national debt has more than doubled under President Obama from $5.8 trillion to $13 trillion.

The total national debt, as a number of fact checkers have pointed out, was already up to $10.6 trillion on Jan. 20, 2009, that chilly-sunny day in Washington when Obama was sworn in. This is according to a handy TreasuryDirect tool at the Treasury Department. The total national debt is now up to about $13.2 trillion, partly as a result of massive government spending under the 2009 economic stimulus package.

What the Minnesota Republican should have said, her office now clarifies, is that, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculations, the total debt held by the public was $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008. It has since risen to $8.6 trillion. Still a jump, still trillions, but not as apocalyptic. Bachmann, it turns out, was conflating total national debt and "national debt held by the public." Apples and oranges, though both fruit. That said, Bachmann spokesman Dave Dziok said, "the bottom line is that both the public and total debt has increased significantly under President Obama and the Democrats' policies."