In case you are unaware, extreme right-wing so-called “Christians” are circulating the idea that Barack Obama’s favorable reception in Europe and the Middle East is an indication that he is the Anti-Christ.

Some of these people include supposed Biblical “End-Times” Scholars like Hal Lindsay, who has no problem with the fact that the other parts of the prophecy regarding the Anti-Christ have yet to come to pass. What’s ignoring a few Biblical prophecies, when distorting them will achieve your craven political agenda?

These people believe that Christians will swallow anything if it comes from a TV evangelist, a crooked pastor, a newsletter, email, or telephone campaign. In fact, Bill Moyers demonstrated just that this past Friday night, when he revisited the Jack Abramoff scandal with so-called Christian Ralph Reed shaking everyone down for money.

To Ralph Reed and his cohorts, Christians are just “wackos”:

BILL MOYERS: On the Coushatta’s tab, Casino Jack once again turned to Ralph Reed. The “Right Hand of God” was just the one Abramoff needed to stir up Texas Christians against gambling in the Lone Star State. Mike Scanlon told the Coushatta that paying Reed was crucial:

[Memo from MIKE SCANLON]: Simply put we want to bring out the wackos …The wackos get their information from the Christian right, Christian radio, the Internet, and telephone trees.

BILL MOYERS: “I do guerrilla warfare,” Reed once said of his political tactics. “I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag.” In Texas, his weapons included bogus Christian front groups.

BILL MOYERS: Reed’s e-mails to Abramoff were insistent - he needed money and he needed it now. At one point, Abramoff responded:

[E-mail from JACK ABRAMOFF]: Give me a number.

[E-mail from RALPH REED]: $225K a week for TV; $450K for two weeks of TV.

[E-mail from JACK ABRAMOFF]: Ralph, they are going to faint when they see these numbers.

BILL MOYERS: But Reed claimed he was worth it:

[E-mail from RALPH REED]: We have over 50 pastors mobilized, with a total membership in those churches of over 40,000…

MARVIN OLASKY: We have one of our reporters based in Dallas who did a lot of calling around and just asking pastors, “Well, were you involved in this?” And lo and behold, no one was.

BILL MOYERS: Marvin Olasky is editor-in-chief of World, the leading national journal of the evangelical right. The magazine spent seven months investigating Reed’s involvement with Abramoff.

MARVIN OLASKY: There was a lot of fooling going on - Abramoff, in a way, was manipulating Ralph Reed, Ralph Reed was manipulating others, but perhaps Ralph Reed was manipulating Abramoff and saying, “I’m accomplishing these things,” whereas he wasn’t. So, you know, there were millions of dollars changing hands, there were actually hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in this whole thing.

LOUS DUBOSE: You know, there’s something ironic and amusing in all that, is that while Abramoff was shaking down these Indians, it’s quite possible that Ralph Reed was shaking down Jack Abramoff.

This is the political and religious leaders’ view of Christians. Gullible and malleable, easily manipulated and misled, these are people that the Republicans believe get their information “from the Christian right, Christian radio, the Internet, and telephone trees.”

This whole “The One” campaign is supposed to be code for Obama being the Anti-Christ, and is meant to appeal to ‘wacko” Christians. Even if someone wanted to make a Biblical case for this, the prophetic evidence is not there, not even in Hal Lindsay’s, “Late, Great Planet Earth”.

So, even though this code cannot be taken seriously, it is supposed to inject an uneasy, subliminal fear that somehow Barack Obama, the Christian candidate, is secretly the tool of Satan, while the multi-millionaire, adulterer, lying, scandal-plagued, unethical, non-Christian is on God’s side, or better yet, God is on McCain’s side.

I’m sure that not a few Republicans are watching this video and asking themselves what they have gotten themselves into, as this is the most juvenile, irresponsible campaign in Presidential history. Obviously, John McCain’s handlers need handlers.

I will enjoy watching what Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Rachel Maddow will have to say about this video in the coming week. Watch the video for yourself, and no laughing, please! Okay, you can laugh when Charlton Heston parts the Red Sea, but only then!