Hurricane Irene has killed several people, caused billions of dollars in property damage, and has left millions of people without power. Irene was a tragic natural disaster. Of course this didn’t take it off the table for Bachmann to use it for political purposes:

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.”

Either after some flack, or in anticipation of it, the campaign said:

“Of course she was saying it in jest,” Alice Stewart, spokeswoman for Bachmann’s campaign, said in a statement sent to some media outlets.

Sorry, but that’s not funny…

Okay, this might be just a little bit funny. The the kind of god that would cause the death and suffering of innocent people to get the attention of politicians is obviously the kind of god that wouldn’t give a rats ass about what anyone thinks. If he had something to say, he would just say it. He wouldn’t try to get politicians to listen to the people that he obviously has no regard for.

A part of me hopes that Bachmann stays in the campaign for a long time. She’s such a terrifyingly wonderful source of blog material. On the other hand, if she were to get elected, I would hate to see her response to a natural disaster. If this statement is any indicator, then rather than declaring a state of emergency and mobilizing federal resources, I could imagine her just calling on everyone to fast and pray instead.