At a news conference today, Congresswoman and presidential aspirant Michele Bachmann denied reports that she will ask Rene Descartes to be her running mate if she wins the Republican presidential nomination.
"I have great respect for Rene," she said, "but I just don't think we'd be a good fit. I'm an a priorist. I believe I know something even if the only thing I have to back it up is a hallucination I had during a bad headache or a graffiti on the 'Are You Tall Enough?' thingy at the entrance to the Dumbo ride at Disney World. I firmly believe that facts just slow you down. That's why I put my fingers in my ears and sing 'Hakuna Matata' as loud as I can whenever the kids watch Jeopardy."
She continued, "There are several problems with Rene as a running mate. The first is that everybody calls him the Father of Modern Philosophy. But there's no Mother of Modern Philosophy. As a result, many of my supporters are going to think he's a single parent, and with a name like 'Rene' you know where that's going to go."
"The second problem is that Rene is an a posteriori guy. Well so is my husband Marcus but that doesn't mean he'd make a good vice president. Rene won't say anything until he can prove it, meaning that he'll pretty much always miss the news cycle. Let me tell you, if I had waited until I had facts to support everything I've said I'd never be where I am today. People would have said, 'OK, that's a fair point,' instead of 'Wow, I can't believe that!'"
"There's another huge problem with Rene as my running mate. A lady behind me waiting for the bathroom on a US Air flight told me he once said,'I think, therefore I am.' Well that's just goofy. Thinking has nothing to do with existing. Look at the unborn. Look at Popeye. He comes across some evil character, destroys him in a nanosecond, and then says 'I yam what I yam,' not 'I thought about it, therefore I yam.'"
"If I'm elected, I'm going to be the Popeye president. I'm going to attack a problem the second I see it and ask questions later. And I want a vice president who will do the same thing in case the problem I attack is booby-trapped and blows up in my face. I want somebody who believes, as I do, that the single greatest obstacle to making something happen is to think about it."