But when you scroll through the Robertson hit parade, you realize he's been singing these nutty songs for years.
Always, the best way to deal with such wretched people is simply to quote them. I'll use up the rest of my space today to hang this bigot with his words. <...>
N.Y. Newsday: Words of a false prophet Ellis Henican
August 24, 2005
It must be in here somewhere, but darned if I can find it - the single, powerful Bible verse that would explain everything today.
For a couple of hours now, I've been scouring my New Testament, looking for the part where Jesus says we should send out hit squads to assassinate foreign political leaders.
Thirteen years of religious education with nuns, brothers and priests! How could I have completely missed this?
I found the stuff about loving our enemies. I came across the passage about turning the other cheek. I even spotted some words that seemed to say that meek people are blessed. What's up with that?
But where on earth is the murder-foreign-leaders verse? Don't the rest of us deserve the same divine guidance that the Rev. Pat Robertson gets?
There the reverend was on his "700 Club" TV program Monday night, in all his sniveling certitude, this great "pro-life" Christian leader, saying we really should get busy and kill Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson told his viewers.
How pro-life is that? Only killing people who are already born? Perhaps there's some special exception in the Bible for Latin American presidents who displease Washington!
This was no mere slip of the tongue. The death-ray reverend from Virginia Beach spun his latest murderous fantasy at considerable length, noting that Chávez may already believe the American government is gunning for him.
"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. ... We don't need another $200-billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
It's tempting to dismiss Pat Robertson as some minor figure on evangelism's fringe, writhing in the dirt of some snake-charming revival tent. Tempting but impossible. Despite a vivid history of vicious exhortations, he's still one of America's most influential clergymen, sitting atop a powerful media empire and a lucrative fundraising machine, the Christian Broadcasting Network.
He made a credible run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988. His "700 Club" reaches 1 million viewers a night, he says. The show is even carried by the ABC Family Channel.
Family Channel? "Hey, kiddies! Come quick! Reverend Robertson's about to finger another foreign leader for death!"
And here we are today in America, objecting to the tactics of the Islamic fanatics! Yes, we do have our own Taliban!
But when you scroll through the Robertson hit parade, you realize he's been singing these nutty songs for years.
Always, the best way to deal with such wretched people is simply to quote them. I'll use up the rest of my space today to hang this bigot with his words.
Pat Robertson once declared that feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." He contended that liberal judges appointed by Democrats are a bigger threat to America than al-Qaida, beseeching God to create a few more openings on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, he agreed with fellow evangelist Jerry Falwell that feminists, gays, abortionists and civil libertarians were to blame for the attacks. Robertson has long maintained a nutty obsession with gays - "self-absorbed narcissists who are willing to destroy any institution so long as they can have affirmation of their lifestyle."
Over the years, he's blamed gays for divorce, abortion and Sept. 11. He asserted that Gay Day at Disney World would bring "terrorist bombs ... earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor."
And he's not what anyone would call tolerant to people of other faiths.
While he (and God, he said) endorsed Bush's re-election last year - "George Bush has the favor of heaven" - Robertson seems to disagree with the president's belief that Islam is at heart a religion of peace.
"Islam, at least at its core, teaches violence," he said not long ago.
Teaching violence? Now there's a subject the reverend knows about!
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