Michele Bachmann admits to being "kook"

Congress woman Bachmann desires to be more knowledgeable

The minimum wage law is a way to see that employees get at least bus money to work and back. Some one with two minimum wage jobs is still not making a living wage.

Minimum wage is not an answer to all the problems of business and commerce. The basic idea was to get as fair a deal as could be for employees without looking like the old sweat-shop wages.

There are still people around who are opposed to minimum wage workers. Take for example what a U.S. Congressional Representative from the state of Minnesota said recently on national television:

''If we took away the minimum wage — if conceivably it was gone — we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.''

Michele Bachman, the lady who wants now to be president, shared those words of wisdom. Our country could solve the unemployment problem by doing away with minimum wages. Jobs, at every level, would appear as if by magic. If only she had suggested this to the rest of her congress comrades and made such a law, how wonderful it would be for all those without jobs.

But the lady-politician did not stop there with her problem solving. Back on television again she claimed that the former Fox News educator, Glenn Beck, could solve the national debt crisis. She told a South Carolina audience: “I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this [the national debt].” Here again, why doesn’t she get the guys and gals in congress together and turn all these problem-solving statements into action.

I did not make this up. No one, to my knowledge, is putting words into her mouth. She is the one who confused her Concords -- the “shot heard round the world” was in Concord, Mass., not Concord, N.H. as she said in a speech in New Hampshire.

She is the one who said: “The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax. … There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.''

All we ask of politicians is a little research, a little reading of the history books and newspapers before that share their wisdom. Bachmann has yet to name even one Nobel Prize winning scientist who believes in intelligent design.

Such talk is scary when coming from a U.S. Representative who wants to be president. What edition of history books has she been reading? What research scientist has she been relying upon? While amusing, it is still frightening anyone could take her seriously.

Intelligent design is held by some church-goers to be how the world came into being. In last week’s funnies Mr. Stiller, a high school biology teacher, helped his class understand the theory. “It goes like this,” he said, “5,700 years ago a male deity created the heavens and earth and all life on it in six days. Unfortunately, He didn’t like his own handiwork so God created genocide and drowned everyone on earth except the family of Noah, a 600-year-old man who was charged with saving animals.”

A student interrupts, but Mr. Stiller continues, “Almost done. So Noah took two of everything including microbes, but forgot the dinosaurs…” [Borrowed from the July 10 episode of Garry Trudeau’s Doonsbury strip. Used here with due respect, but lack of official permission to copy the words. Hope neither side will sue.]

To Bachmann’s credit, she is aware of saying strange things, she lamented once: “I have experienced that throughout my political career, being labeled a kook.”

Once Bachmann also said, I wish I was more knowledgeable…” to which a friend of mine said, “Lady, we all wish you were more knowledgeable.”

PUBLISHED IN SAN ANGELO STANDARD-TIMES, FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2011