Potential presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has publicly rebuked the media’s predictable plan to pit her against fellow female Republican Sarah Palin. Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins, however, is more than happy to pick up the slack.

As the media concocts a girl-on-girl political cat fight between Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, Bachmann has repeatedly denied any competition.

“I like Sarah Palin a lot, we’re friends,” she said on Good Morning America last month. “And I don’t consider her a competitor, I consider her a friend. But my comparison ultimately is to Barack Obama.”

But steadfast conservative Ed Rollins, formerly a strategist for Ronald Reagan and Mike Huckabee, joined Bachmann’s team this week as a political adviser and wasted no fanning the “Bachmann versus Palin” flames

“Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years. She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn’t go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship,” said Rollins.

He went on to praise Bachmann as a hard worker, as an “important” player in the war for “family values,” and as “the best communicator” in the GOP field, as opposed to Palin, who consistently makes up words and history.

While Bachmann wants to keep herself above the fray, she’s clearly all-too-pleased to let her surrogates do her electoral dirty work.