Matthew Yglesias (May 13, 2008) - Is Obama the Anti-Christ? (Politics)

That painting, like so many medieval paintings in the genre, shows a face on the devil's backside. With the way Boehner's been talking out his ass lately, maybe he's the antichrist.

Posted by phil | May 13, 2008 12:00 PM

God, who has refused to interrupt His vacation to deal with the Burmese disaster, was not available for comment.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | May 13, 2008 12:01 PM

While I have know actual evidence this is the case, Matthew must have been trying to say there is "plenty of idol speculation" in that last sentence. Right?

Posted by ly.nn | May 13, 2008 12:04 PM

Hey, if it gets the wingnuts to stay home in November, I guess I'm OK with four years of Armageddon.

And if it really is the end times and all of the thumpers ascend to heaven -- well, that's a twofer!

Posted by Joe | May 13, 2008 12:05 PM

"...Now there appears to be know actual evidence that Huckabee..."

Do U no Howe 2 reed B4 poasting?!?

Come on, you "rote" two sentences, and you still made an avoidable (and retarded) mistake. Read your damn entry (out loud if you have to), before you post it - don't trust the spell-checker to do your work for you!

Posted by a1 | May 13, 2008 12:05 PM

Does this mean the Rapture is happening soon? Because I can't wait for all those folks to disappear.

Posted by Angry Sam | May 13, 2008 12:12 PM

If I were Matt, I'd purposely slip in these typos/homophones on a regular basis just because of the hilarious reactions they provoke.

So another day, another major paper fueling the Obama=muslim/anti-christ/commie/armageddtastic candidate.

Posted by Ricky B | May 13, 2008 12:13 PM

Wait a minute, isn't the world scheduled to end sometime around December 22, 2012? Could it be that a President-Elect Huckabee would be the actual anti-Christ?

Posted by Shawn | May 13, 2008 12:17 PM

It is quite an oversight to raise the question without linking to the definitive discussion of the issue, Matt.

Posted by phensley | May 13, 2008 12:21 PM

Is Obama the Anti-Christ?

Nope.

My guess is Pauly Shore or Lon Solomon.

Posted by SoCalJustice | May 13, 2008 12:23 PM

I was curious about who would have paid for an anti-Papist painting of that quality in the 15 century or so, so I clicked the link and found out that (a)it's a painting of St. Wolfgang of Regensburg, not the Pope, and (b) it illustrates an episode in which Wolfgang allegedly forced the Devil to help him build a church.

So I think the painting (which is one panel of an altarpiece painted around 1483 by Michael Pacher) actually illustrates St. Wolfgang reaching across the aisle to work cooperatively with his opponents.

Posted by Pesto | May 13, 2008 12:26 PM

This is it --- the Yglesias Challenge! Will Matt correct an egregious spelling error that makes his post look like it was written by a speech-recognition machine and which distracts readers from the content of his argument, or will he let it just sit there and continue to make his writing look stupid?

Place bets now!

I know the odds are against it, but I'm pulling for you, Matty!

Posted by Adam Villani | May 13, 2008 12:32 PM

Umm, why are we always so focused on making evangelicals sound so batshit-crazy? Some of them bring it on themselves, and Novak's article is guilty of the same thing. I hope that Matthew's entertaining comment is directed against Novak, and not against most evangelicals.

I may not be an evangelical (I'm a Catholic) but I do believe in God, and deep down inside I form my opinions based on a rhetoric that could be called political theology. So you might not be surprised to hear that in my gut my favorite two candidates of this election were Obama and Huckabee. In a two-way race I'd prefer Obama. But in, say a two-way race between Clinton and Huckabee, it wouldn't feel as good voting for Clinton (not saying I wouldn't vote for her though, just that the campaign would start with me undecided.)

I suspect that lots of evangelicals are basically Republican mirror-images of me, and some of them will end up voting for Obama. Ex-neocons and paleocons might feel like penance is in order, but Christians will be voting for Obama in droves for positive reasons, because he speaks our language (secularists aren't the only ones who want Obama to "hope all over them"), and because his professed goals so often resonate with our own sense of what's right. For secularist supporters of Obama, it's not good politics to make fun of those impulses. It also kind of pisses me off.

Posted by Matt | May 13, 2008 12:43 PM

Umm, why are we always so focused on making evangelicals sound so batshit-crazy? Some of them bring it on themselves, and Novak's article is guilty of the same thing. I hope that Matthew's entertaining comment is directed against Novak, and not against most evangelicals.

I may not be an evangelical (I'm a Catholic) but I do believe in God, and deep down inside I form my opinions based on a rhetoric that could be called political theology. So you might not be surprised to hear that in my gut my favorite two candidates of this election were Obama and Huckabee. In a two-way race I'd prefer Obama. But in, say a two-way race between Clinton and Huckabee, it wouldn't feel as good voting for Clinton (not saying I wouldn't vote for her though, just that the campaign would start with me undecided.)

I suspect that lots of evangelicals are basically Republican mirror-images of me, and some of them will end up voting for Obama. Ex-neocons and paleocons might feel like penance is in order, but Christians will be voting for Obama in droves for positive reasons, because he speaks our language (secularists aren't the only ones who want Obama to "hope all over them"), and because his professed goals so often resonate with our own sense of what's right. Hey, maybe some Christians feel guilty for supporting the Iraq war. Good for them! For secularist supporters of Obama, it's not good politics to make fun of these impulses. It also kind of pisses me off.

Posted by Matt | May 13, 2008 12:47 PM

The term "anti-christ" is used nowhere in Novak's column.

Posted by Mark Adams | May 13, 2008 12:47 PM

I find it amazing that anyone would have the slightest interest in the writings of a lying fascist fucktard like Nazi Novak, although his antisemitic views may appeal to folks like Mr. Trevor.

Posted by SLC | May 13, 2008 12:58 PM

If he isn't the anti-christ heralding the beginning of the tribulations and terrible Kirk Cameron movies visited upon the globe, would Obama be more like the plagues visited upon the Egyptians hosting Abraham?

The first of the [3 major wife/sister narratives in the Bible] is found at Genesis 12:10-20, and is the briefest of the three. The story begins by describing Abram migrating to Egypt in order to evade a famine. Noticing how beautiful his wife, Sarai, is, Abram worries that the Egyptians will kill him so that they can marry his wife instead, and so asks her to pretend she is his sister.

On arriving before the Pharaoh, the Egyptians recognise Sarai's beauty, and the Egyptian princes shower Abram with gifts of livestock and servants to gain her hand in marriage. Sarai thus becomes part of Pharaoh's house, but Yahweh sends a plague to punish Pharaoh for (unknowingly) causing adultery. Pharaoh consequently realises the truth of the matter and so sends Sarai and Abram away from Egypt back from where they had come.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife-sister_narratives_in_Genesis

So, if Obama is a secret Muslim who is not a Muslim, maybe he will be like Sarai and Yahweh will send plagues upon the Republicans who have tried to tell the American people that he is a Muslim when he is not. And then the Pharaoh will free us from the Republicans. Or something.

Posted by El Cid | May 13, 2008 1:09 PM

Dear God, did you really type "know" for "no"?

Posted by Sanjay | May 13, 2008 1:11 PM

Obama's not the Antichrist, I am, and I have documentary proof. On a recent grocery run, I handed $120.00 to the cashier and got $6.66 in change. I've saved the register tape.

Posted by CJColucci | May 13, 2008 1:14 PM

El Cid,

Or, if Obama's like Sarai, maybe he'll get fucked by the Egytpians.

Posted by El Cid's Horse | May 13, 2008 1:29 PM

I think Novak just made that all up from the voices in his head.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 13, 2008 1:59 PM

Jeffrey Davis: I think Novak just made that all up from the voices in his head.

You guys need to get your stories straight.

I thought the religious right was full of wackos and that it was completely within the realm of the possible for some of them to believe that Obama was God's punihment on the nation.

But apparently Bob Novak was making up stuff all along. The religious right is completely sane, it's just that the right-wing media is out to make them look bad.

Do I have it straight?

Posted by Mark Adams | May 13, 2008 2:13 PM

They know he's not the antichrist. They just know they can't say they can't vote for a black guy. Why even pretend there's any religious component in this?

Posted by Helter | May 13, 2008 2:22 PM

Jeffrey Davis: I think Novak just made that all up from the voices in his head.

You guys need to get your stories straight.

I thought the religious right was full of wackos and that it was completely within the realm of the possible for some of them to believe that Obama was God's punihment on the nation.

The two aren't incompatible. Novak's a recent convert to Catholicism and converts are notoriously "more Catholic than the Pope". Novak could easily have been speaking for himself.

I don't want to suggest that there couldn't be others. I've never heard the suggestion before, but now that the notion is "out there" there could be others who'll pick it up and run with it. As for me, I think the notion is just a cover for racism: better to be overtly loony-tunes than to vote for a black guy.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 13, 2008 2:30 PM

In Matt's defense (and his spelling is notoriously indefensible), I think he's been at a book event today. This is probably an autopost and he isn't even back in the "office" yet. If I were him I'd leave it up, unchanged, for all time. Or at least until there's a blogger ethics/grammar/spelling panel. Then after he's learned to be a responsible journalist/grammarian/author he can issue a meta-correction.

Posted by kilroi | May 13, 2008 2:37 PM

In Matt's defense (and his spelling is notoriously indefensible), I think he's been at a book event today. This is probably an autopost and he isn't even back in the "office" yet. If I were him I'd leave it up, unchanged, for all time. Or at least until there's a blogger ethics/grammar/spelling panel. Then after he's learned to be a responsible journalist/grammarian/author he can issue a meta-correction.

Posted by kilroi | May 13, 2008 2:40 PM

Wait a minute, isn't the world scheduled to end sometime around December 22, 2012? Could it be that a President-Elect Huckabee would be the actual anti-Christ?

Yes, but that's the Mayan end of the world. The evangelicals wouldn't buy into that date because it's a "pagan" end of the world. But it doesn't matter anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion that all the evangelicals will be the ones left behind!

Posted by JDinBalt | May 13, 2008 2:44 PM

Jeffrey Davis: The two aren't incompatible.

Ahh, so Novak made it up (based on the voices in his head) and now it may become reality based on people reading it?

(By the way, did you know the kind of wackos Novak is referring to are the kind that don't care for Catholics at all? And did you know Novak was strongly anti-Huckabee? Apparently now he is carrying water his Huckabee's followers. Maybe, just maybe, Novak actually has a source for what he claiming. And maybe, just maybe he thinks this story might be something of interest to people who follow elections rather than some elaborate effort to smear Obama.)

Posted by Mark Adams | May 13, 2008 2:55 PM

Off-topic, but I love this painting. Few people know Michael Pacher, but he was as fine a sculptor as he was a painter. Most vistors to the Munich Alte Pinakothek don't go there for Pacher's Fathers of the Church Altar (neither did I), but I found it one of the most interesting and delightful works there.

Posted by burritoboy | May 13, 2008 3:39 PM

Not the anti-Christ, more like a divinely-approved natural disaster. Y'know, like Katrina smiting all those sodomites and Dixieland bands.

I agree (if I understand them right) with commenter Matt and with Mark Adams. This is the flipside of speculation on the Dem side of the aisle, that Hillary is going to undermine, or only give token support to, Obama's fall campaign, either because Hillary is a Machiavellian sleazeball and/or the Democrats sinned so badly in rejecting her that a McCain presdiency is what they deserve.

I'm not a Novak fan and he seems to be allowing himself to be used here by his source, as he has so often. But the idea is that social conservatives think the GOP deserves to be out of the White House for 4 years or more. I'm down with this idea, although I would give different reasons why the GOP deserves this fate.

Posted by Dix Hill | May 13, 2008 3:40 PM

Not the anti-Christ, more like a divinely-approved natural disaster. Y'know, like Katrina smiting all those sodomites and Dixieland bands.

I agree (if I understand them right) with commenter Matt and with Mark Adams. This is the flipside of speculation on the Dem side of the aisle, that Hillary is going to undermine, or only give token support to, Obama's fall campaign, either because Hillary is a Machiavellian sleazeball and/or the Democrats sinned so badly in rejecting her that a McCain presdiency is what they deserve.

I'm not a Novak fan and he seems to be allowing himself to be used here by his source, as he has so often. But the idea is that social conservatives think the GOP deserves to be out of the White House for 4 years or more. I'm down with this idea, although I would give different reasons why the GOP deserves this fate.

Posted by Dix Hill | May 13, 2008 3:42 PM

...but Novak's got plenty of idle speculation.

Aren't idle speculations the devil's playground?

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | May 13, 2008 4:25 PM

Ahh, so Novak made it up (based on the voices in his head) and now it may become reality based on people reading it?

You follow me like a panther.

(By the way, did you know the kind of wackos Novak is referring to are the kind that don't care for Catholics at all? And did you know Novak was strongly anti-Huckabee? Apparently now he is carrying water his Huckabee's followers.

Did you know that some people who voted for HRC in the primaries might vote for Obama in the general. It's true.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 13, 2008 4:40 PM

So Sunday we had the NYTimes bemoaning the failure of extreme mullahs to put out a fatwah on Obama's head, and letting Luttwak issue one. And Monday WaPo has Novak fussing about Obama as a biblical plague to be inflicted upon a Christian nation.

This election season I'm suddenly understanding the end of newspapers.

Posted by Deborah | May 13, 2008 4:47 PM

That painting, like so many medieval paintings in the genre, shows a face on the devil's backside.

There's a reference, Dante's Inferno, to "the mouth from which one farts". It led to a lot of giggling in High School English.

Posted by ben | May 13, 2008 5:06 PM

Anybody want to see Matt's original manuscript for HITS?

It's gotta be a hoot with the typos and bad grammar.

I hear the editor had to be given a month's vacation at a health farm - or maybe it was a mental hospital - after preparing the book for publication.

It almost sank the book deal since the publishers were thinking nobody that poorly educated could have anything worth reading.

"Noticing how beautiful his wife, Sarai, is, Abram worries that the Egyptians will kill him so that they can marry his wife instead, and so asks her to pretend she is his sister."

Sounds like poor John in "Terminator" - walking around high school with a killer robot posing as his sister.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 13, 2008 5:40 PM

Anybody want to see Matt's original manuscript for HITS? It's gotta be a hoot with the typos and bad grammar.
Richard Steven Hack

You know, I've occasionally given Matt a ration for typos in his posts (a 'feature' of voice-recognition software), but hopefully it's understood the ration is in fun.

As a graphic artist, I once made fun of what to me was an obvious error in something Frank Miller had done. A friend replied, "You know, when you're having your own graphic novels published, you can haul out your little opinions. Maybe they'll even stick. Until then, put a sock in it."

Just sayin'.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | May 13, 2008 5:48 PM

Re Jeffery Davis

Actually, Nazi Novak converted to Catholicism a long time ago. As a matter of fact, he is a member of the fascist Opus Dei society, like his former buddy, Robert Hansson, the FBI spy, currently serving a life term in a federal birdcage.

Posted by SLC | May 13, 2008 5:55 PM

Did you know that some people who voted for HRC in the primaries might vote for Obama in the general. It's true.

Good point. I guess you're right, Novak is making up random, weird shit about fundamentalist Christians not voting for McCain b/c he's a crazy Catholic who wants to start a movement among Catholic-hating fundamentalists while simultaneously hurting the GOP's chances of winning in November. That's impeccable logic there Jeffrey Davis.

Posted by Mark Adams | May 13, 2008 7:02 PM

In all seriousness, my mother, an Evangelical Christian, told me she believed Al Gore is the anti-Christ back in 2000. So if Obama is one of the plagues, and not the anti-Christ, does that mean Gore might run for election again?

Posted by Stephanie | May 13, 2008 9:48 PM

God wasen't on vacation. He gave us something called free-will. Collectively & Individually. "Man was given dominion over the earth." Now i'm sure you can come up with 100 different ways to distort and use that verse to your advantage, but that's what it will be distortion.

Posted by Charles | May 25, 2008 10:53 AM

Is Obama the Anti-Christ?

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