Over the weekend, while many on the East Coast were hunkering down in preparation for Hurricane Irene – which left 40 dead in its wake – Michelle Bachmann decided to use the impending emergency for political purposes while putting her own biblical spin on it.

“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?’ ” Bachmann said at a campaign event in Sarasota on Sunday.

“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.”

Of course, once the statement started making the rounds of the media – still in the midst of covering the storm’s arrival – Bachmann’s staff were quick to try to course correct. They released a statement from Bachmann saying that she was just “being humorous”, and that it would be “absurd” to think anything else.

Really?

With all the misstatements she’s made, and the fact that she says that God called her to run for President, is it really all that absurd to think that she wasn’t joking? Bachmann has a history of making wild statements, only to pull them back when the heat gets turned up. And she’s a favorite among conservatives because of her willingness to put religion front and center.

In the scheme of things, the offense here is that she was using the impending disaster – and the earthquake earlier in the week – to score political points in a joke. She either needs better writers or needs to stay away from trying to be funny. And I’m betting the families of the 40 people killed in the wake of Irene would agree.