.
Americans
who are fed up with what many perceive to be President Barack
Obama’s intransigence toward Israel will find a refreshing
alternative in 2012 if Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) manages
to capture the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
The
attractive, outspoken congresswoman — founder of the
Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives —
is an aggressive, no-holds-barred supporter of the Zionist
nation. She has taken Obama to task, asserting that “the
Obama administration has decided to . . . leave Israel to
face the world alone, effectively abandoning our longtime
friend and ally when they need us the most.” Mrs.
Bachmann told one interviewer of her special passion for
Israel:
I
have been a longtime supporter of Israel. The first time
I went to Israel was the day I graduated from high school.
I spent a summer working on Kibbutz Beeri near Beersheba
in 1974. I’ve been four times in Israel —
three times as a member of Congress. I loved Israel —
from the moment I first landed. . . . I am honored to
be in a position where I can help Israel. I have a tremendous
love for Israel, and great admiration for the Israeli
people.
Now
serving in only her third term in the House of Representatives
— first elected in 2006 following three terms in the
Minnesota state Senate — the 55-year-old congresswoman
has skyrocketed quickly to national fame and is much talked
about in the mainstream media.
Even
the liberal New Republic magazine has acknowledged
that Mrs. Bachmann is a “serious contender”
for the GOP presidential nod. Already, in an early straw
poll in New Hampshire, Mrs. Bachmann ran fifth in a field
of 20 names, outpolling former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
In
private life, Mrs. Bachmann and her husband Marcus have
five children, have been foster parents to 23 others and
are the owners of a Christian counseling clinic. Mrs. Bachmann
is generally identified as a “Christian conservative,”
and associated in particular with hard-line dispensationalists
Tim and Beverly LaHaye, who look forward to Armageddon and
who are said to have inspired Mrs. Bachmann’s political
activism.
Having
studied advanced tax law, Mrs. Bachmann served from 1988
to 1993 as a U.S. Treasury Department attorney in the U.S.
Federal Tax Court in St. Paul, where, by her own admission,
she prosecuted and sought to send to jail “hundreds”
of people charged with underpaying or failing to pay their
taxes.
Now
ensconced on Capitol Hill, where she founded the Tea Party
Caucus in the House of Representatives, Mrs. Bachmann has
become a major media figure and political power player.
Unlike
a lot of politicians who proclaim their support for Israel
as a way to pander to the owners of the big media and to
wealthy pro- Israel campaign contributors — who bankroll
an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the national finances
of both major parties — Mrs. Bachmann has a real and
passionate devotion to Israel.
A
member of a fundamentalist offshoot of the traditional Lutheran
Church, Mrs. Bachmann has said, “I am a Christian,
but I consider my heritage Jewish, because it is the foundation,
the roots, of my faith as a Christian.” So her support
for Israel is philosophically based and not just political
rhetoric. Speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition,
Mrs. Bachmann described her views:
[W]e
have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as
a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship
with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a
curse that comes into play. My husband and I are both
Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from
Genesis [12:3], we believe very strongly that nations
also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong
and beautiful principle.
Mrs.
Bachmann and other friends of Israel on Capitol Hill even
introduced a resolution in the House — backed by nearly
half of the members of the Tea Party Caucus — urging
Israel “to use all means necessary to confront and
eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic
of Iran, including the use of military force.”
In
that regard, although Mrs. Bachmann has said that Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “announced his intention
to bomb the state of Israel,” she was mistaken. He
never made such a threat.
Like
all people, Mrs. Bachmann makes errors, and this was one
of a number of her gaffes, which have made her all the more
down to earth and endearing to her supporters.
For
example, Mrs. Bachmann referred to the Smoot- Hawley Act
— which instituted much-needed protective tariffs
supported by American nationalists — as “Hoot-
Smawley,” generating much laughter. Mrs. Bachmann
also claimed the law was brought into being by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt when, in fact, it was the work of
two Republicans — Sen. Reed Smoot (Utah) and Rep.
William Hawley (Ore.) — and signed into law in 1930
under GOP President Herbert Hoover.
What
concerns purists who expect public officials to know the
issues is that Mrs. Bachmann falsely claimed tariffs made
the nation’s already precarious economy worse: A variety
of historians have exploded that myth put forth by internationalist
free traders.
Mrs.
Bachmann also puzzled serious readers when she made the
strange claim she stopped being a Democrat and turned Republican
when she read a book by novelist Gore Vidal that she felt
made light of America’s Founding Fathers. Anyone who
knows anything about Vidal’s novels about American
history knows Vidal celebrates — rather than demeans
— America’s founders.
Mrs.
Bachmann’s bias against Vidal may also arise from
the fact that Vidal has been a vocal critic of Israel and
its lobby in America, and has also questioned the U.S. government’s
official version of the Oklahoma City bombing. In addition,
Vidal’s novels paint the America-first, non-interventionist
movement in a positive light in stark contrast to Mrs. Bachmann’s
internationalist views.
Mrs.
Bachmann’s views on religion have also raised eyebrows,
including her possible hostility to Roman Catholicism. Mrs.
Bachmann’s church is affiliated with the small Wisconsin
Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), which states clearly
on its website that it believes the papacy “is the
antichrist.” When confronted, Mrs. Bachmann insisted
it was “absolutely false” that WELS considers
the papacy to be the anti-Christ. Perhaps Mrs. Bachmann
had not read the website.
* * * * * * *
. . ..Michael Collins Piper can now be
heard on the Internet at michaelcollinspiper.podbean.com.
He is the author of Final
Judgment, the controversial
“underground bestseller” documenting
the collaboration of Israeli intelligence in
the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is
also the author of The
High Priests of War, The
New Jerusalem: Zionist Power in America ,
The
Judas Goats: The Enemy Within,
Dirty
Secrets: Crime, Conspiracy & Cover-Up in
the 20th Century,
The
GOLEM: Israel's Hell Bomb,
and Target:
Traficant. These works can
be found at America
First Books and FIRST
AMENDMENT BOOKS:
1-888-699-NEWS. He has lectured
on suppressed topics in places as diverse as
Malaysia, Japan, Canada, Russia and Abu Dhabi. |
|
(Issue #17, April 25, 2011, AMERICAN
FREE PRESS
