Good lord. If you followed the second link in my Watching ABC watch the candidates post, you’ll have seen the weird ad that Camp McCain promulgated on June 27: the face of a young, white-T-shirted Barack Obama on a $100 bill, morphing into what smintheus describes as a “ghoulish … image [that] grows large on the screen, [before] bright lights begin to stream out of his eyes, his face turns a deathly yellow and finally explodes in a burst like fire.”
Well, if that didn’t get the job done, check out Hal Lindsay’s response to McCain’s “The One” anti-Obama ad — nope, I’m not going to link it from here; to see it, you’ll have to go to wnd.com (WorldNetDaily) and put “Hal Lindsay” in the search window there. Hal Who? As Larry Madill explains at DKos:
… In right-wing Christian Evangelical and Dominionist Circles Hal Lindsey is a Big Deal. In the late Seventies Lindsey helped popularize the modern, Fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Book of Revelations and the Apocalypse with his book “The Late Great Planet Earth”. This is the grand-daddy of the violent, homophobic, racist apocalyptic fiction of [Tim] LaHaye’s “Left Behind” books and scores of other works attempting to interpret The Book of Revelations for our times.
Hal Lindsey is largely responsible for the modern Fundamentalist Christian view of the Anti-Christ as a world leader who can unite the world and bring a temporary peace before the End of the World. The very same imagery and sophistry that McCain’s The One ad plays up.
So I sincerely doubt it is mere coincidence that the same day McCain’s Campaign puts out an ad with images of Barack Obama as a messianic figure Hal Lindsey writes:
Obama’s world tour provided a foretaste of the reception he can expect to receive.
He will probably also stand in some European capital, addressing the people of the world and telling them that he is the one that they have been waiting for. And he can expect as wildly enthusiastic a greeting as Obama got in Berlin.
The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance. (emphasis Madill’s)
The lifetime Agnostics and Atheists, even the sane Christians, among us may find it easy to write this off as pure silliness, but no one should be quick to dismiss this new line of smear attack. Why? Because what seems silly nonsense to the rational is deadly serious to the true believers and the un-balanced. Having grown up in the Evangelical Church I can tell you that the Dominionist view of the Book of Revelation is real. Real to them as surely as the laptop you are reading this diary on and means nothing short of the End of the World.
So put yourself in their heads, and ask what would you do to stop The End of the World?
I’m not sure about Madill’s concluding suggestion. Would preacher-nuttified Dominionist fundies resort to violence against Barack Obama — or would they vote for him, if they think his world-leadership prepares “the Rapture” (just as they believe a strong Israel hastens it)?
I don’t know, but in any case, I think we can see that the Rovians McCain took aboard are connecting with their intended audience and having their intended effect. And if you call this either “honorable debate” or “just politics,” I say you’re wrong.
P.S. This morning a little south of here, Obama said: “In no way do I think John McCain’s campaign is racist. I think they are cynical. Their team is good at creating distractions and engaging in negative attacks.” Yep, and the same description applies to their use of fundamentalist dog-whistles: they’re no Christians but simply cynics playing with fire.
well the AC might be a nice break after the Satanic Triumvirate of Bush Cheney and Rove
Alot of funadmentalists do not take Hal Lindsey seriously. I have all of his books and they are a joke. Scholarship is horrible. I like the part in Countdown to Armageddon where he explains UFO’s. At some point in the future demons will appear as aliens in order to mislead us. I’m not kidding. He wrote that. As for Worldnetdaily, they are a joke for the most part and are becoming more and more discredited as they are repeatedly busted for plagerizing other conservative publications. Look at their so-called Obama and Iraq fraud story this week. Problem is they virtually ripped off the same story from an April Human Events issue, put their name on it, and called it “breaking”. Also, if you read the story, Obama had very little if anything to do with it as it was all something Rezko and his buddies cooked up. I’m not voting for Obama but I’m not going to put that on him if he didn’t do it.
I’ll put it this way, Barbara Simpson is one of their columnists. The Babe in the Bunker they call her on there. Want to guess who she used to sub for on the radio? I’ll give you a clue: the 12:00-5:00AM CST time slot.
I doubt Hal Lindsay was influencing McCain when Hillary made the same type of joke about Obama. Its not a hard one to make when even SNL is making fun of him in that manner.
Hep me out here, keengfeesh. I’ve never heard of Barbara Simpson and don’t know who has that radio time-slot where you are.
Other way ’round, kingfish: McCain whistling for Hal Lindsay & his dawgs.
Art Bell. I figured that lateness of the shift would give it away.
Jon Stewart was making jokes about Obama going to Bethlehem to see the manger he was born in. you’ve got to do better than that to tie in McCain to a nut like Lindsay.
I’d been expecting as much.
Ah, well, k’fish 6, don’t recognize Art Bell’s name either . . . problem is, I barely know who Limbaugh is. Just don’t listen to talk radio except for some Terry Gross.
I doubt ObamUh is the anti-christ, but, the anti-christ will be someone just like him.
And just what is wrong with a truthsayer like Art Bell.
actually, I thought the Bush administration fulfilled the prophecy quite nicely with all the duplicity it employed and its misappropriation of faith.
I think “The One” is a reference to the “Neo” character in the movie “The Matrix”, who was a type of “savior” for the remaining real world outside the matrix.
The way I had it figgered: Reagan was John the Baptist reincarnated, paving the way for the true AntiChrist, George W. Bush. My prophecies are worth every bit as much as Hal Lindsey’s, Pat Rogers’s, Jerry Falwell’s, and so on down the evangelical kook roster.
And I’ll say this … anyone who reads the kind of drivel Hal Lindsey and his ilk publish should be grabbed by the back of his/her collar and shaken vigorously. What in the world is wrong with people who like nothing better than to be scared s*#tless all the time?
When I went off to college I got pulled into Campus Crusade for Christ and Hal Lindsey was real popular with those impressionable young folks. (My wise daddy told me they sounded too much like brown shirts for his comfort. I drifted off from them.) Now they all grown up and still holding on to those stories.
I like how he has to keep rewriting his “prophecies”.
In Late Great Planet Earth, USA was supposed to be in a permenant state of decline.
Hey, Kingfish, ya know that little song and dance Hillary did looked pretty damned snarky and unattractive, but I can see why McCain might like it.
I just think it’s pretty funny that McCain’s finding Obama so squeaky clean that he’s had to resort to attacking him . . . for not being a total dirtbag.
Worse, he doesn’t call his wife ugly four-letter words or complain that she’s dressing like a trollop; the stupid man even appears to be fond of his wife. Why would we want to vote for a goody-two-shoes like that?
I think Barack is too scared not to be fond of his wife. I think everyone knows who runs that show.
You funny, kingfish.
That’s your excuse for McCain’s atrocious treatment of his present wife (and we won’t even get into what he did to his first one)?
I’m disappointed to see that many men cannot accept another man who is respect to his wife, but don’t have much to say about the man who doesn’t.
Respectful….
I frankly don’t pay much attention to that stuff. used to. When Fordice’s little fling came out I was mad at him about it but since then, seeing other people’s marraiges has taught me a few things. Such as we don’t always know what is going on and what we see or hear about is alot of times 10% of the whole story and the spouse who is looking like the jerk alot of times is the actual victim. Not saying that is the case here, just why I don’t get too involved in that kind of speculation.
Okay, kingfish, which is it? You know all about the Obamas’ marriage, or you don’t get too involved in that kind of speculation? 16 or 20?
The first comment was a joke, the second was my actual position. I tend to be cynical about these things. I’m sure you’ve seen, as I have, so called perfect political marraiges where everything looked perfect and years later we found out the real story.