Fringe and fundamentalist Christians often attribute natural disasters to an angry God. So too does Michele Bachmann.

Christian fundamentalists often claim that natural disasters are God’s wrath. After the Japan earthquake, for example, Rush Limbaugh, mused, “Because the Japanese people shun God in terms of their faith and follow idol worship, atheism, and materialism, it makes me wonder if this was not God’s warning to them.”

And John Hagee, one of the pastors who appeared at Glenn Beck’s Israel rally, blamed Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans’ gay-friendly debauchery. Now Michele Bachmann is getting in on the UNHOLY act: the Republican presidential candidate said this weekend that God sent Hurricane Irene and last week’s earthquake “to get the attention of the politicians.”

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians,” Bachmann said during a campaign appearance in Florida. “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.”

While Bachmann’s remarks may win her friends among fundamentalist Christians, it probably won’t win her much support among Republican insiders. Sure, the climate change deniers in the GOP may be anti-scientific, but few of them want their party’s presidential nominee to be spouting rhetoric that sounds like it sprang from the dark ages.

Actually, maybe I’m wrong.

Update: Obviously aware that Bachmann’s comments make her sound like a complete loon, the candidate’s campaign now says she make her odd remarks in “jest.” Yeah, Bachmann does make a good jester.