Bachmann’s gaffe about earthquake

I didn’t think it would take long for one of our numerous obscurantist presidential candidates to make some silly claim about the recent earthquake on the East Coast. Michele Bachmann doesn’t disappoint. Here’s a quote from Bachmann via the St. Petersburg Times:

I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.

Bachmann subsequently brushed the comment off as a joke, as politicians are apt at doing when they get called out for making ridiculous statements. She said on Monday that

If you take everything that a person says as straightforward you misunderstand the intent. So of course I was being humorous when I said that because the American people have tried very hard to get the president to pay attention; he is not listening. And that was really the message that I was trying to give in those comments. So it was a great deal of humor; it would be absurd to think that it was anything other.

I think that’s a curious rebuttal. So, if we take everything the biblical writers say, for instance, as straightforward, as evangelicals urge us to do, are we misunderstanding the intent? I guess so. Well, that settles it then. We can take everything written in the Old Testament about arks and animals being rounded in two-by-two (or was it seven-by-seven?) as laugh-out-loud funny.

I have to admit, Christian Broadcasting Network spokesman David Brody was spot on with his assessment of Bachmann’s particular brand of fringe-right craziness from the same St. Petersburg story:

What Michele Bachmann’s campaign strategy seems to be is to make sure she’s not seen as an extreme candidate and for her not to just appeal to the Tea Party and evangelicals, but also independents. So when she comes out and jokes around like this — her campaign is saying it’s a joke — it does play into the stereotype that’s out there. That’s a danger zone for her, but at the same time she is what she is, so it’s hard for her to rein in at times.

 

1 thought on “Bachmann’s gaffe about earthquake

  1. Wow, is the crazed and dazed Bachmann now a reverend, she can take her place next to the other flakes like Jim Jones, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, (all silly jimmy’s), Ted Haggard, John Hagee, Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Gramham (son of Billy), and we can’t forget the rev. Mike Huckabee. Maybe she is just channeling the fruity Pat Robertson. Isn't she suppose to be helping her husband in some "pray the gay away sessions" so he can get some of that evil "Federal Money", thats she is always railing about, hypocrite, both of them!

    But alas we probably will hear more or the same lies that we heard today. So who is the bigger fool, Bachmann or her followers?

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