"Antichrist" update

So Barack Obama has been nominated as the Democratic candidate for president, which inevitably raises the question -- is he the Antichrist? The McCain people have been sort of suggesting that with their “The One” commercial though they didn’t  come right out and admit it when David Whittenberg, a blogger for the “Washington Post,” confronted McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers about it. He “didn’t give a straight answer,” Whittenberg writes of the response from the  Straight Talk Express.  ‘"The Obama campaign has said that they don't believe that to be the case. IIf you really want [the ad's] secret meaning," he added, "play it backwards at half speed," said Rogers.

Whittenberg might be working on that, but in the meantime he did what any other journalist would do -- make a Google search. He entered “Obama and Antichrist” and got 1.3 million hits. Sloppy research! I refined the search, putting “Barack Obama” in “exact wording” and “Antichrist” in “all these words” and only got half as many. Though I’m still sifting through the 501,000 hits, some have  stuck out, including one in which Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, authors of the “Left Behind” series of Apocalypse/Rapture novels, express skepticism. "I can see by the language he uses why people think he could be the antichrist," LaHaye is quoted as saying, "but from my reading of scripture, he doesn't meet the criteria. There is no indication in the Bible that the antichrist will be an American."

Or IS he an American? Nonetheless, even though there is an "Obama is the Antichrist" website,  the general consensus seems to be that he’s not.

What a relief! But then, what if...John McCain was the Antichrist? I pop his name and “Antichrist” into the Google advanced search and get 452,000 hits!. True, many of these are items about the John McCain people insinuating that Obama is the Antichrist, but there are also observations like this on the web forum “abovetopsecret.com”:

“Look at his name John, Jaan, A name in Arabic which is another name for the Devil. Cain, Remember the bible story of Cain slaying his brother Abel?, Cain, A Black devil that had to go live in Southern Iraq in the wicked city of Nod. All of the Evil Aliens from other galaxies used to meet their at the first Nudist Camp on this planet; Nod/Nuwd. John McCain does have a Reptilian shapeshifting appearance about himself, Would you not agree?. The AntiChrist.”

Sounds reasonable to me. But just to be thorough, I pop some more names in. Hillary Clinton? 342,000! Many , however, seem to be preoccupied with her Antichrist-like fashion sense. Britney Spears? 148,000, but no doubt her alleged claim to be the Antichrist at the time of her suicide attempt might have upped the numbers. The biggest shock was when I punched in “Bill O’Reilly is the Antichrist” -- only 8 hits tallied. Compared to when I punched in my own name, which was 59!

One of those Antichrist hits under my own name, by the way, was a blog item back in 2007 about Lars Von Trier being incapacitated by depression while working on his new movie called “Antichrist” -- which was the subject I was originally going to write about in this posting before being distracted by all this political stuff. It seems Von Trier is feeling better and “Antichrist” is back on track. It takes place in a world which has been created by Satan, and not God and a couple played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbrough hide out in a cabin in the woods (surrounded evidently, judging from the pictures on the website , by cute woodland creatures)after their daughter has been killed in an accident and await the apocalyptic news that the Antichrist, Ralph Nader, has been elected President.