Bachmann Uses Fake George Washington Prayer To Bash Obama
Before getting to the fake Washington prayer, Bachmann, referring to Obama's statement in Turkey, shared her thoughts about Abraham Lincoln:
Well, Obama, of course, didn't say America is a nation of secularists either, so I don't know what the hell Bachmann was talking about there. Bachmann then proceeded to spew out a fake Washington prayer found on numerous Christian nationalist websites, compounding the lie by attributing this prayer to Washington's inaugural address, something that even the Christian nationalist history revisionists aren't stupid enough to try to get away with.
Where did this prayer come from? Well, it's a rewriting of the last paragraph of the circular letter sent by Washington to the governors of the states in 1783, when he resigned from the Army at the end of the Revolutionary War. This paragraph was altered by a church, inserting a few "Thys," "Thous," and "Thees," and adding the "Almighty God" opening at the beginning, and the "through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen" closing to the end, thus creating Washington's "prayer for the nation." This fabricated prayer was put on plaques in several churches associated for one reason or another with Washington, then spread to to the Christian nationalist American history books, and eventually to the internet, which is apparently where Michele Bachmann gets her historical "facts." Bachman then continued to display her incredible ignorance of American history by saying that the founders signed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights on the same day, apparently having so little knowledge of even the most basic facts about the founding of our country that she doesn't understand that there were nearly two years between the Constitutional Convention and the drafting by the first Congress of the amendments that would become the Bill of Rights, and another two and a half years before the Bill of Rights was ratified. By this point Bachmann had shifted the subject of her ranting from Obama's secularism to taxes, making fear of taxation the reason for the Bill of Rights.
It's no big surprise that Bachmann wrapped up her rant by getting in a plug for the Congressional Prayer Caucus, the group founded by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) that has consistently propagated the Christian nationalist version of American history, most notably with Forbes's proposed House Resolution 888, a resolution for an annual religious heritage week, packed with a seventy-five "Whereas" clause litany of historical revisionism and misinformation that, nonetheless, managed to get an astoundingly scary ninety-three historically ignorant co-sponsors, including, of course, Prayer Caucus member Bachmann.
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