WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has often found herself on the receiving end of criticism by fellow Republicans for her controversial comments and factual errors. On Thursday, however, she received some of the harshest and most public rebukes of her career. House Speaker John Boehner joined Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others in denouncing Bachmann's questioning of the security credentials of Hillary Clinton's Muslim aide. Boehner said "accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous." McCain labeled the attack "sinister." And even Bachmann's former campaign strategist, Edward Rollins, chimed in, writing on the Fox News website that "this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level." Bachmann defended her actions, which were supported by four other Republican members of the House, by explaining to Glenn Beck that she merely asked the federal government to "look into [Abedin's] family associations before she got a high level security clearance." Later Thursday evening, to prove that her concerns were universal and not the product of discrimination or bias, Bachmann levied the same complaint against openly Catholic lawmakers.

"Look at Sen. John Kerry," Bachmann said. "Thankfully this guy lost the presidency to George Bush, but can you imagine? What do we know about him? Well, we know he distorted material facts about his conduct in the Vietnam War -- phony charges of war crimes, exaggerated tales of bravado and derring-do, and blatant misrepresentations of his service. And this is precisely the same kind of deceit the Catholic Church used to start the Crusades."

The Crusades were a series of medieval, expeditionary holy wars blessed by Pope Urban II and the Catholic Church, with the stated objective of restoring Christian access to religious sites around Jerusalem. Bachmann pointed out, however, that they were really conquests for land, money, and power in the Middle East under the guise of serving Christ.

"This occupation of a foreign land, to plunder its resources and establish a stronghold without provocation, went on for centuries," Bachmann said. "Those aren't the ideals of real Christians. That never would have happened under George Bush. And this is why today Muslims are still calling jihad and attacking America, a Christian nation. You could probably make the case that 9/11 was the fault of the Catholics. So why don't we question their family histories and alliances? I'm not just discriminating against Muslims."

It's the same rhetoric Bachmann employed to demand an investigation into the past of Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's aide. Citing an unofficial outside study that claimed Abedin's immediate relatives had links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Bachmann told Beck: "If my family members were associated with Hamas, a terrorist organization, that alone could be sufficient to disqualify me from getting a security clearance."

Because Secretary Clinton and others have praised Abedin, Bachmann feels a larger threat of conspiracy has been ignored.

John McCain called Abedin "an intelligent, upstanding, hard-working, and loyal servant of our country and our government, who has devoted countless days of her life to advancing the ideals of the nation she loves and looking after its most precious interests."

John Boehner -- a Catholic --described Abedin as having "a sterling character."

Bachmann said these compliments further prove the existence of links between Hamas and prominent congresspeople, by proxy of their agreeable working relationships with Abedin, who is basically a terrorist.

Bachmann herself is not linked to any Islamic group. She was a longtime member of the Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, which believes the Pope is the Antichrist.

(c) 2012. See disclaimers.