Multiple headlines on YouTube claim former Rep. Michele Bachmann believes Barack Obama is the Antichrist.
There’s “Michele Bachmann warns Obama will reveal he’s the Antichrist.”
The popular (7,000 views) “Lunatic Bachmann Says Obama Is About To Reveal Himself As Anti-Christ.”
And “Michele Bachmann WARNS The ANTICHRIST Will Take Over UN (OBAMA’S REAL AGENDA).”
However, the former lawmaker from Minnesota told WND, “I did not say President Obama is the Antichrist, nor did I infer that he is.”
Bachmann said she’s asked YouTube to take down the inaccurate statements but has not received a response.
YouTube did not respond to WND’s request for comment.
As a member of Congress, Bachmann drew opposition from the left for her conservative political views and Christian beliefs.
When she ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, for example, Time magazine publisherd a snarky headline: “Why Michele Bachmann’s $2-a-Gallon Gas Promise Is a Fantasy.”
Senior writer and energy expert Bryan Walsh mocked the congresswoman for pledging that under a President Bachmann, “you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again.”
“On Wednesday Michele Bachmann said something that’s just very, very wrong,” Walsh wrote at the time. “Which isn’t unusual in and of itself, but is something that needs to be debunked.”
Continuing his derision, Walsh wrote, “If you see sub-$2-a-gallon gas again, I strongly suggest that you stock up on bottled water and canned tuna, because the economic end times may be at hand.”
But early in 2016, gasoline routinely was found below $2 a gallon and in a few places below $1.
“So who’s crazy now?” Mark Finkelstein asked in a Newsbusters piece posted on FoxNews.com. “In 2011, the MSM mercilessly mocked Michele Bachmann for saying that if she became president, gas prices would fall to under $2/gallon. … But on CBS This Morning, there was top oil analyst Tom Kloza, saying that by Christmas, gas prices would be in the range of … $1.99-2.29.”
He wondered where “does Bachmann go to get her apology from the MSM that so mercilessly mocked her?”
False assumptions
Politicians expect criticism of their positions and statements, but now, as a former politician, Bachmann says she is just trying to get YouTube to halt the outright fabrications.
The claim that she identified Obama as the Antichrist, she said, is beyond the pale.
“I think President Obama has done more to hurt our nation than any other American president in our nation’s history. He changed world history by enabling Iran, the world’s chief sponsor of anti-Israel/anti-American terrorism, to quickly get a nuclear bomb and the means to deliver it to the U.S.,” she said.
“Barack Obama’s legacy is the establishment of lawlessness in the United States. He has deeply damaged both the American and global economies. He has deliberately stoked hatred between people based upon the color of their skin.
“In fact it is difficult to identify any positive legacy he will leave the American people. That being said, I do not believe Obama is the Antichrist,” she told WND.
Raw Story traced the Antichrist claim to a radio interview Bachmann did with Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries regarding a report by “the right-wing Investor’s Business Daily” about the possibility Obama would lead the United Nations following after leaving the Oval Office.
The partisan Right Wing Watch also cited the radio interview as the origin.
However, Bachmann did not claim in the interview that Obama is the Antichrist. One would have to make a number of unsupported assumptions to conclude that a statement by host Eric Barger indicated that.
Barger said: “The whole idea of Obama being able to extend his presidency, even enhance it and expand it, I don’t think I need to say what I’m thinking because I think a lot of the listeners are thinking the same thing, and we all are too, and as you shake your head you wonder what’s coming next.”
Right Wing Watch said Barger was suggesting “that Obama may in fact be the Antichrist.”
Raw Story said something similar: “The implication, of course, is that Obama is the biblical Antichrist.”
Then Raw Story went a step further and said it’s “a suggestion Bachmann herself has made before.”
The news site then linked to Right Wing Watch, which cited the IBD story and said the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida “claimed that Obama is trying to become secretary-general of the United Nations while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is thwarting his bid.”
A good name
Markell told WND she has known Bachmann for years and never has heard her claim Obama is the Antichrist.
“She never made that statement,” Markell said.
Bachmann told WND: “Too many websites and YouTube channels repeat the false statement attributed to me. It may have been done to undermine my credibility or to simply enrich con artists eager to scam donations by using my good name and reputation. Nonetheless, saying I called Obama the Antichrist is a lie, and false statements attributed to me are a theft of my character.
“In fact, it is grand larceny. A good name is more precious than gold, the Scriptures tell us, and I am fighting to protect the integrity of my good name.”
WND reported that when Bachmann retired from Congress, she promised to continue her fight for conservative values.
Tea Party Patriots said in a statement that Bachmann “has fought against growing government, Obamacare, waste, fiscal irresponsibility and against the ruling elite that has fought tooth and nail against Tea Party Patriots and the movement.”
“Michele believes in the American people who make up the tea party and has fought for our principles with tenacity and fearlessness,” said Jenny Beth Martin, the group’s co-founder and national coordinator.
WND in 2012 named her “Woman of the Year,” an honor presented to the woman who does “the most to represent goodness, womanliness, perseverance and character” and has “an impact on wider American, and global opinion.”
Bachmann was chosen for her extraordinary dedication to America’s founding principles, her steadfast defense of the Constitution and championing the values of limited government and America’s Christian heritage.
She long has been in the bull’s-eye of the left.
At the time the award was given, WND Managing Editor David Kupelian said: “I remember when Newsweek did that hit piece on her, plastering a maniacal ‘evil eye’ photo of her on the cover and headlining it ‘The Queen of Rage.’ All I could think of was: How ridiculous, that’s exactly the opposite of reality. Michele Bachmann is one of the most gracious and genuinely caring people I know. And caring for a couple dozen foster children, as she and husband Marcus have done (not to mention five of their own) takes love – not rage.”
At one point, the attacks were so fierce that the Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity referred to Bachmann as “the second most hated Republican woman,” after Sarah Palin.
And WND reported when even Barack Obama went on the offensive, singling out her religious beliefs.
The video:
[jwplayer KpV2vZQ3]
“Michele Bachmann actually predicted I would bring about the biblical end of days,” Obama said at an inside-the-beltway fest in Washington. “Now that’s a legacy. That’s big. I mean Lincoln, Washington, they didn’t do that.”
Progressive media seized on Obama’s mocking of Bachmann with even more ridicule.
Shawn Drury, senior editor for Blue Nation Review, chimed in with an abusive article titled “Armageddon is Upon Us Because of Obama, Gays.” MSNBC, Huffington Post and others followed suit.
Huffington Post writer Marina Fang reported uncritically the Obama line that his negotiations with Iran are “meant to prevent the country from developing or obtaining nuclear weapons.”
“Obama has said repeatedly that the goal of the nuclear talks with Iran is to prevent the country from developing a nuclear weapon,” Fang reported, adding that “Bachmann also blamed abortion and gay marriage, arguing that God is punishing the United States for ’embracing a pagan view.'”
Markell, co-author of “Trapped In Hitler’s Hell” with Holocaust survivor Anita Dittman, defended Bachmann on the occasion of the earlier attack.
“To see her hammered and trashed by the left, and even some on the right such as ‘The Christian Post,’ is very grievous,” she said.
WND has reported that Bachmann believes in the promises and warnings of the Bible.
“If we actually turn our back on Israel, as we are seeing Barack Obama doing today, if that happens, then I think we will see a scale and level of pushback in the United States, negative consequences,” she said in another interview with Markell.
“I don’t know what they are, but I believe the Bible is true,” she said. “And I believe what the Bible says is that our nation and the people of our nation will reap a whirlwind, and we could see economic disaster, natural disaster. The U.S. does not want to be in that position.
“Unfortunately, the people put in office Barack Obama, not only once, but twice. The people have to rise up against his actions and demand their leaders take steps accordingly,” she said
