By now, nearly everyone has probably heard that TV preacher Pat Robertson has put aside his Christian sensibilities and called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As Pat explained on his 700 Club program yesterday:
“You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war…. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. 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.”
The web is filled, of course, with the mockery you’d expect. Pat is ignoring one of the Commandments he wants posted in courthouses, Pat has put aside the whole WWJD? question, etc. But there’s a point I’d like to add that most people may not realize: Pat Robertson says stuff like this all the time.
Indeed, for a man who considers himself one of America’s foremost religious leaders, Robertson is almost preoccupied with wanting to see others killed. In August 1999, Robertson called for a series of assassinations as part of an “aggressive” American foreign policy. A year earlier, Robertson said Floridians would get killed by “a meteor” because of Gay Day festivities in Orlando.
More recently, in 2003, Robertson expressed his displeasure with the U.S. State Department by saying “we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up.” A few months before that, he told his television audience that he hoped God would kill off a Supreme Court justice or two.
In other words, a former Republican presidential candidate, ally of George W. Bush, and “religious leader” for millions of conservative Christians in America is a vocal advocate of mass murder — and has been for a long time. Yesterday’s lunacy generated headlines, but it wasn’t anything unusual for this sad and deranged man.
And here’s the kicker: it won’t matter. Republicans won’t denounce Robertson, no one in the administration or Congress will distance themselves from him, and his followers will continue to send him cash. With today’s right, there simply are no limits. Robertson, alas, is a mainstream figure in the conservative movement.
Post Script: As an aside, who wants to bet on when some relatively high-profile conservatives tacitly defend Robertson today by noting how awful Hugo Chavez really is? It’s inevitable.