This is great!

You may recall my comments about Michele Bachmann, the incredibly hateful and ignorant GOP conservative who got, incredibly, elected to Congress in the MN Sixth. This editorial appeared in today's Minneapolis paper - it's fabulous!!!!

Bachmann: Our secret weapon for Baghdad
By Nick Coleman, Star Tribune

Praise the Lord and send Bachmann to Iraq. And make it snappy.

Michele Bachmann is the freshman congresswoman who raised eyebrows last fall when she claimed God had "called" her to run for Congress. I know the Lord moves in mysterious ways, and I am open to the possibility that divine intervention helped Republican Bachmann move up from the state Senate to Washington so that she might stop smiting Minnesota's gays and lesbians and start solving some real problems.

Anything is possible.

So I am glad that Bachmann apparently believes she will know what we should do about that pesky Iraq thing when she can get there and take a look-see.

This is fabulous news. After almost four years of a war that has cost thousands of lives and seems to be getting worse by the moment, we have overlooked the obvious solution:

Drop Bachmann on Baghdad!

I pray she won't waste another minute booking a flight.

"I don't believe we have all of the information in front of us," she recently said. "As a member of Congress, that's why I want to go to Iraq as quickly as I can. I want to get the best information in front of me."

The thanks of a grateful nation to Michele Bachmann!

All that nonsense about the Iraq Study Group was a waste of time, as was the 2006 election, in which Americans thought they were expressing disapproval of the war.

As it turns out, all we needed was to get Baghdad Bachmann into the fray to find out what to do. I don't know why we didn't think of it long ago: Michele goes to Mesopotamia and we get a solution! She is very sweet to offer, and she should be deployed as soon as possible, so we can get this thing wrapped up.

Or perhaps Bachmann should just give fellow Republican Norm Coleman a call.

Sen. Coleman already has been to Iraq, twice (he made his second visit last month). He may not know what to do about Iraq, yet. But he knows what not to do: He says the answer is not to send 20,000 more troops and extend the tour of 2,600 Minnesota Guard soldiers who thought they were coming home in March.

In this, he is ably representing the thousands of Minnesotans whose lives have been disrupted by an ill-conceived and unnecessary war that has gone off the tracks. Norm voted to authorize that war, like many Republicans and Democrats in Congress. But unlike Newbie Bachmann, who believes she might know the solution once she sees Baghdad, Norm says we have seen enough already.

On the day we learned that another Minnesota soldier had died in Iraq, the troops heard from a cable TV channel that their tours had been extended.

Sen. Coleman didn't have to go to Iraq to find out what he should do about that disgrace.

He wrote an angry letter to the secretary of defense, saying that announcing extended war tours on cable TV was an "unacceptable way to treat our nation's citizen soldiers." He also opposed the president's face-saving plans to gamble more lives on a failed policy in Iraq.

A "troop surge" in Iraq, Norm said in a Senate speech, will "put more American troops at risk" trying to fix a problem -- sectarian violence -- that is Iraq's, not America's.

Give Norm credit. Sure, he's running for reelection in 2008, but Bachmann will be, too. At least Norm is smart enough to start backing away from the Kool-Aid vat. And by abandoning the president's line, he is speaking up for the troops and their families, who are expected to remain silent.

More politicians should listen to the people (61 percent disapproved of a troop surge in a poll taken after President Bush proposed it). And more, like Gov. Tim Pawlenty, should serve their constituents before their ambitions. Although our governor spoke up on behalf of the Minnesota Guard members Thursday, he has spent months playing buddy-buddy with presidential prospect and surge proponent John McCain.

Still, if Michele Bachmann or others think they can enlighten us by going to Baghdad, I say, by all means. Go. Get a move on.

Nick Coleman • ncoleman@startribune.com