When I was reading Dump Bachmann (a blog I used to write for) I noticed that they'd posted a link to story about my congresswoman that was all too familiar. She talking about the possibility that God might someday call her to run for a higher office. In this particular case--the office was the presidency.
She has stated publicly that throughout her life, God come to visit her and instruct to take particular course of action. Sometimes these visits come in the form of visions, other times they are messages, and on some occasions she claims to have had conversations with the Lord. (Yes, she has claimed this publicly, while running for office, and there is video.)
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The latest reference to the possibility that Michele is acting on direct instructions from God is in WorldNetDaily.
Finally, WND asked Bachmann if she could see a day when the candidate who began her political career in jeans and a holey sweatshirt would one day run for the presidency.
"If I felt that's what the Lord was calling me to do, I would do it," she answered. "When I have sensed that the Lord is calling me to do something, I've said yes to it. But I will not seek a higher office if God is not calling me to do it. That's really my standard.
"If I am called to serve in that realm I would serve," she concluded, "but if I am not called, I wouldn't do it."
Look. Don't be in such a godawful hurry to rush into the comment thread and focus on the "unintentional pun" ("holey sweatshirt.") Please read the whole diary first, and then go to the article in WorldNetDaily and read that. You'll learn some very interesting things, things that will help you to understand exactly what kind of liar and threat Michele Bachmann is.
The WND article is another example of Bachmann is lying to people. But this is a special case, because her audience at WorldNetDaily is made up of evangelical conservative believers in Christ. And Bachmann has done that before. It was captured on video by an anti-Bachmann activist, and posted to YouTube. (I will include all the links to these items in this diary, but I want to explain the context to you first.)
In 1999, Michele Bachmann, a resident of Stillwater, Minnesota, began to explore the possibility of winning political office. She met with a local Republican powerbroker named Bill Pulkrabek. Bachmann told Pulkrabek that she wanted to challenge the incumbent GOP State Senator Gary Laidig for the Republican nomination, and run for State Senate herself. Bachmann had built up some credibility with local evangelical conservatives (protesting at a hospital that would provide abortions, etc.) and believed that she should be the Minnesota State Senator.
At the meeting, Pulkrabek told not to challenge Senator Laidig. He advised instead to make her entry into politics as a candidate for the local schoolboard. The Stillwater schoolboard race was traditionally non-partisan, but Pulkrabek had come up with a plan to run a slate of five GOP-endorsed candidates that year. Bachmann took his advice and ran as a partisan GOP candidate that year.
During the campaign she appeared on local evangelical radio to promote her candidacy and that of her fellow Republicans. All of them lost, and to this day, that's the single electoral defeat that Michele Bachmann has suffered.
But her campaign and her evangelical radio exposure raised her profile with local evangelical conservatives, and Michele came back and challenged Senator Laidig for the State Senator nomination. She appeared at the Republican nomination event with number of fellow conservative evangelicals, outnumbering Laidig supporters and taking the nomination away from him.
If you read the WorldNetDaily account of how she got into politics, you will find that it tells a very different story from actually happened. You will see Bachmann claiming (as she regularly claims) that her political career began with her challenge to Laidig. She does not mention her partisan campaign as a GOP candidate for a failed run at a school board seat.
Now that's not necessarily a "lie," you might call that deceptive "spin or omission" aimed at deceiving the evangelical Christian readers.
Here's the lie:
Michele Bachmann, candidate for the United State Congress, testifying for Jesus Christ at a Minnesota church, October 14, 2006:
"And in the midst of all this, as if we didn't have enough to do, He called me to run for the Minnesota State Senate. I had no idea, and no desire to be in politics. Absolutely none."
Now that's a lie, as the established account of Bachmann's partisan political activity and campaigning prior to her Senate run.
To many people that might not seem like a such a serious 0r important lie. But it is; it's very important. Throughout her career, Bachmann claims that she has been representing personal devotion to Jesus Christ, Christian values and to be acting on instructions from God. Yet here she is, lying in church, to fellow conservative Christian--in the name of Jesus Christ.
This lie--and where and how it was told--tells us that the devotion Bachmann claimed and still claims to have to the Christian faith and Jesus Christ is false. Evangelical Christians say they believe that the name of God is sacred, that it violates a core commandment to make wrongful use of that name--but Bachmann has no problem doing that: falsifying the circumstances surrounding the beginnings of her political career in church, before a congregation of believers, while testifying for Jesus Christ. (This particular Bachmann lie, by the way, is why I chose to call my comic book political biography of Michele "False Witness.")
She's told many, many lies--before and since, and I've recorded them since at least 2003--but I found this one particularly breathtaking, given the circumstances of the telling. And to this day, she's telling Christian audiences a false account of how she got into politics.
Now: the "conversations with God/direct orders from the Lord" stuff:
Michele Bachmann, candidate for the United State Congress, testifying for Jesus Christ at a Minnesota church, October 14, 2006:
"And then the Lord showed me that I needed to go to college, and so I went to college. And when I was in college He showed me that I needed to start pursuing Him in an even deeper way. And so I started to speak to others at our college and university about who He is, and started to lead others on my dorm floor to Jesus Christ.
...We were praying one night, a girlfriend and I, not Marcus, and the Lord gave each one of us the same, exact vision. And it was this: It was a picture of me, marrying this man, in the valley where his parents have a farm in western Wisconsin.
And we got that word, we were praying in the Spirit, I'd been baptized in the Spirit, we were praying in the Spirit and the Lord showed us that, and I just said, "Well, Lord, that's really strange, I'll just put in on the shelf."
And I put it on the shelf, put it in His hands, and said: "You make the calling sure."
I had no idea: at the same time, the Lord was speaking to my husband, and He showed my husband, he was repairing a fence on the farm where he worked, and the Lord showed him in a vision that he was supposed to marry me...
...And during those dorm years, when I was busy studying, the Lord put in my heart, that if I would be diligent and I would be steadfast, He would take me to law school. And I thought, law school? I have no interest in going to law school. But I put that in His hands and I put in His plan, and I put it in His hands, and pursued that, and eventually He did, He took me to law school.
And I went to the first Christian law school that there was in the United States, down at Oral Roberts University, where they taught the law from a Biblical worldview.
And from there, my husband said "Now you need to go and get post-doctorate degree in tax law." Tax law? I hate taxes. Why should I go and do something like that? But the Lord says: Be submissive, wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.
...Never had a tax course in my background, never had a desire for it, but by faith, I was gonna be faithful to what God was calling me to do through my husband, and I finished that course of that study.
...And in the midst of all this, as if we didn't have enough to do, He called me to run for the Minnesota State Senate. I had no idea, and no desire to be in politics. Absolutely none.
...And in the midst of that calling, God then called me to run for the United States Congress.
And I thought, what in the world would that be for. And my husband said œYou need to do this." And I wasn't so sure. And we took three days, and we fasted and we prayed. And we said "Lord, is this what you want, are You sure? Is this Your will?" And after, along about the afternoon of day two, He made that calling sure.
Evangelical Christians sometimes claim that God has called them to make life choices; that's not so unusual. And is certainly not unusual for for evangelical conservatives seeking to exploit Christ's name for profit, or career, or power--to claim that they are acting on God's instructions; at His calling.
What's unusual is for an American politician to campaign in a church on the basis of direct, personal access to God--and at the same time to be caught lying while testifying for Jesus Christ.
So you now you have the "if God calls me to run for president, I shall" stuff--in context. You now know that we are talking about a politician who has claimed that throughout her life, on a number of occasions, God directed her decision making--coming to her in person and instructing her on what course to take. You needed to know that, to understand why and how a nut, liar, and bigot like Michele Bachmann could be elected to office. (That's the question I am most often asked about her: "how could such a nut get elected?") This is how: a telegenic looking woman who links the conspiracy haunted thinking of the extreme right, with the name of God, and lies shamelessly even to fellow Christians.
That's a formidable arsenal of personal political weaponry, when you combine it with Michele's backing from the GOP, the conservative media, and the national religious right.
The link to how Michele actually began her career in politics is below, at the bottom of the page (which also explains that Michele was calling herself "Dr. Bachmann" at this time):
http://www.citypages.com/...
The link to how Michele lied about how she got started in politics (during testimony for Jesus Christ, before a live audience in church and on video) is here:
http://www.thebachmannrecord.com/...
and here is the transcript of her recounting various visitations from the Lord, and his alleged directions to her.
http://www.thebachmannrecord.com/...