It seems that it is all too common these days for conservative politicians to claim disparate events such as natural disasters as evidence to back up their political ideology. The latest offender was Michele Bachmann who decided to link weather patterns as the will of God affirming conservative economic policy. This weekend during a campaign rally, she declared:

“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.”

The lunacy of such a statement goes without saying — even the Bachmann Campaign later announced that “she was saying it in jest” after facing heavy criticism. But comments like this one expose the simplicity in exploiting religion to gain political influence. All Michele Bachmann had to do was grab God, an earthquake, and a hurricane, then mix them around in her head for a moment, and voilà – a pious explanation for justifying her stance on cutting government spending, or just about anything else she wants to grab from her ass.