Bachmann doesn't kid about this.

“When you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside-down, the Devil’s in the details.”

—-Rep. Michele Bachmann, concluding her critique of rival Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” tax plan during the Bloomberg GOP presidential candidates’ debate.

Throughout her campaign, as she has throughout her political career, Rep. Michele Bachmann has been sending coded messages to her Evangelical Christian base, usually through Bible references that most Americans don’t recognize. But most of us have seen “The Omen.” When an Evangelical like Bachmann suggests, with a big smile of course, that a black Presidential rival named Cain is pushing a plan that becomes the Mark of the Beast when turned upside-down, she’s not joking….indeed, I have never seen any evidence that Michele Bachmann is capable of joking.

Bachmann’s “joke”  last night was nothing of the kind. To the contrary, it was the worst innuendo I have seen in any political race at this high a level, a suggestion with a knowing wink that an adversary was an agent of evil. The media has been quick to laugh it off, because to anyone who does not take the Book of Revelations literally, such a suggestion is ridiculous. Bachmann knows, however, that a disproportionate number of Tea Party members, Cain’s strongest supporters as well as hers, take 6-6-6 very, very seriously, as seriously as she does, and to them, her tying Cain to Satan is a warning.

I had once thought that Newt Gingrich was unmatchable as the most despicable Republican contender for the nomination…no small feat in a field that includes the dog-abusing Mitt Romney, anti-gay bigot Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul, who blames the United States for the attacks of 9-11. Bachmann has been making up ground for a while now, notably with her irresponsible and false statement that the HPV vaccination caused “mental retardation,” and she finally lapped Newt with the 6-6-6 smear. You can’t be more vicious than to accuse an adversary of carrying the signature of Satan

Bachmann is an embarrassment to the race, her state, and the party, and the sooner she is gone, the better off everyone will be.