Last night on The Late Show with David Letterman they aired a short piece where comedian Andy Kindler went to the Republican convention. The highlight comes when he meets Michelle Bachmann at the 1:27 mark:

KINDLER: Hi, Ms. Bachmann -- I'm with the David Letterman show. Do you have any comment? The David Letterman show.

MICHELLE BACHMANN: Hi Dave! Hi Dave! We watch you at night. Bye-bye!

This little non sequitur baffled me. I mean, what was she trying to say? Did she spend several years vainly attempting to watch David Letterman during the daytime before she finally gave up? He's only on at night. There's no option. It's like saying, "I'm carrying an umbrella because I don't like rain from the sky."

After much thought I decided that she's doing something that I do: when we run into somebody -- or somebody's representative -- we wrack our brains for some little tidbit that we know about them, and we volley it into conversation. Hearing about Kindler's affiliation, Ms. Bachmann wrangles up everything she knows about Letterman. She doesn't like the top ten lists. She doesn't chuckle at those skits with Biff. Nope, all she knows is that he's got a TV show, and it's on at night.

Somebody else might give her points for trying, but personally I think she looks dumb. I mean, when I meet somebody unexpectedly and desperately wrack my brain for conversation topics, I have a minimum relevance requirement you just can't ignore. Failing a stronger correlation, for instance, I won't remark that this person and I both have an affinity for clothes. If the person is a male, I won't say, "Hey, you know about blowjobs, right?" If the person is a female I won't say, "So how's that vagina working out?"

Smart people check that minimum relevance requirement and toss out everything below it. If Stephen Hawking met a guy from NASA he wouldn't say, "Hey, how about those rockets always shooting up into space?"

I'm thinking Ms. Bachmann's nonsense-spouting is a right-wing thing. When people aren't exactly smart, they frequently wrack their brains and come up with no information, so they can't afford to have a minimum relevance requirement. Ms. Bachmann doesn't want to appear baffled by the lamestream media like Sarah Palin was. If somebody asked her about newspapers she'd probably say, "Oh, gosh, I just love reading those really big folding sheets!"

As always, I'm tempted. I yearn for the comfort of stupidity. If I met Ms. Bachmann I just might toss out that minimum relevance requirement and tell her that I love hearing her say all those words.