It’s obvious why Nevada Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle’s GOP handlers try so hard to keep her away from inquisitive reporters: she’s nuts. Really, honestly nuts. Don’t want her talking to journalists, oh no. That’s no way to get elected.

Today she’s back in the news for echoing reptilian Rep. Joe Barton’s bizarre defense of BP, calling the $20 billion escrow fund set up by the Obama administration a “slush fund.” Her interview on the Alan Stock radio show featured a special guest appearance by one of the right wing’s boogeymen, Saul Alinsky and his book “Rules for Radicals.”

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A caller said that Obama had “basically extorted $20 billion from a private company,” and asked Angle what she thought of “the $20 billion slush fund.”

“Government shouldn’t be doing that to a private company,” Angle replied. “And I think you named it clearly: It’s a slush fund.”

Angle then criticized BP, saying we do need some sort of “management” agency in there to monitor the company, claiming it “cut corners.”

But she then said government was in the process of overreaching in its response.

“It’s an overreaction by government for not the right reasons,” Angle said. “They’re actually using this crisis if you will, because they never waste one — Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals — they are using this crisis now to get in cap and trade, and every crime and penalty, and slush fund.”