Laughing It Up

By Jeffrey Page
That Michele Bachmann is an ignoramus can no longer be in doubt. But now she has proven herself to be a merciless ignoramus.

Once, we would have laughed at the thought of a presidential candidate asking the press to investigate Congress to see which members were pro-American and which were anti-American. Once, we would have laughed if a candidate declared that not a single study existed to show that carbon dioxide is harmful.

It’s time to stop laughing. It’s also time for some of her Republican colleagues to call her out. More on this later.

Bachmann now is hinting that God himself caused Hurricane Irene and the earthquake the week before in order to catch the attention of free-spending politicians. Here’s her full quote, uttered on a campaign stop in Sarasota, Fla.: “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.’ ”

How dare she blaspheme by suggesting that God is an American? (“We’ve got to rein in spending?”). How dare she suggest that God is a fiscal conservative thus hinting that if you happen not to be a fiscal conservative, you’re somehow on the wrong side of the Almighty?

But wait. With Bachmann, the story never ends, and this one reveals her dark side. When she was finally challenged, she issued an “explanation” that insults the intelligence of anyone reading it.

“Of course she was saying it in jest,” Bachmann had her campaign press secretary say.

Jest? With 43 people dead in Hurricane Irene?

Jest? With billions in property damage resulting from the storm and the quake? With countless lives ruined? With pictures of people, their hands over their mouths, wondering how to re-start, where to start first, where to get the cash needed to re-make their lives? With millions of people still without electricity days after the winds subsided?

Jest.

A fair question now, about one year before the Republican nominating convention, is whether any of the other GOP candidates or possible candidates will label Bachmann’s crazy assertions for the trash that they are.

Mitt Romney seems like an obvious choice since Massachusetts took a beating at the hands of Hurricane Irene. Maybe John Huntsman, who sounds pretty smart much of the time. Of course there’s Newt Gingrich who fancies himself the GOP intellectual in residence. How about Giuliani, the self-styled patron saint of New York? Or how about the in-again, out-again George Pataki who doesn’t seem to have much to lose at this point.

I doubt any will.

But until one says what has to be said, Bachmann will continue her one-woman freak show. Think back, it was Michele Bachmann who famously stated that she found it “interesting” that the great swine flu epidemic of the Seventies occurred when the Democrat Jimmy Carter was president. What’s really interesting is that the flu outbreak occurred when the president was the un-Democrat Gerald Ford.

jeffrey@zestoforange.com

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One Response to “Laughing It Up”

  1. r.c. taplin Says:

    right on Jeff!!!!!!!

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