On January 4, 2012, after she finished near the bottom of the Iowa Caucuses, Michele Bachmann delivered her “concession speech,” during which she announced she was discontinuing her campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination.

In that speech, in Des Moines, Bachmann pronounced “poignant” as “poyg’-nant” — a hard “g.”

How is this possible?

A U.S. Government website tells us that Bachmann received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota, in 1978.  She got her JD (Juris Doctor degree) from Coburn School of Law, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1986.  She got her L.L.M. (Masters of Law degree) from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1988 — this is an advanced degree in law from a prestigious institution.  She was then a lawyer in private practice — then an attorney at the United States Treasury Department.  She was a member of the Minnesota state senate.

She was elected to the United States Congress as a Representative from Minnesota in 2006, and has been re-elected twice.

All that education.  All that high-level professional experience.  And then, she was candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

How then, does she, in a speech broadcast nationally, mispronounce “poignant”?

Does she even know what the word means?  Has she never had to pronounce it before?  Never used the word before?  We don’t always expect politicians to write their own speeches.  But, shouldn’t we expect them — especially those with this much education and governmental experience — to know how to say all the words in them?

This is troubling.  I wonder about this not because she is of any particular party.  Instead, I wonder about this because of the “education” she has piled up.  The lofty heights she has reached.  I wonder about this because she has impliedly asked us all to believe that she is smart.  And maybe she is.  But, something is clearly missing.