After humiliating himself and becoming an international punch-line in August, TV preacher Pat Robertson probably should have taken it easy for a while and steered clear of the national media. It turns out, the guy just can’t help himself.
Pat was on CNN’s Late Edition yesterday, primarily to discuss his support for Harriet Miers. But before he could get to the subject at hand, Robertson first had to tell a national television audience that the weekend’s tragic earthquakes in Pakistan is a sign of the end times.
“If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it’s like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. […]
“[W]hat was called the blessed hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know it would change into something that would be wonderful that we’d call the millennium. And before that good time comes there will be some difficult days and there will be likened to what a woman goes through in labor just before she brings forth a child…. Could this be it? It might be.”
Then, not having the good sense to leave a question about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez alone, Robertson returned to the issue that caused him so much trouble in August.
“The truth is, this man is setting up a Marxist-type dictatorship in Venezuela. He’s trying to spread Marxism throughout South America. He is negotiating with the Iranians to get nuclear material. And he also sent $1.2 million in cash to Osama bin Laden right after 9/11.
He is — I mean, I’ve written him. I apologized and I said I’m going to be praying for him. But one day we’re going to be staring at nuclear weapons and it won’t be Katrina facing New Orleans, it’s going to be a Venezuelan nuke.
When Wolf Blitzer asked where he got the idea that Chavez sent $1.2 million in cash to bin Laden after 9/11, Robertson said, “Well, sources that came to me.” (Robertson apparently hasn’t learned to block out those voices in his head. Poor guy.)
Please keep in mind, Robertson may be a crazed TV preacher, but he’s also a close ally of the president. Bush has appeared at two Robertson-hosted Christian Coalition events and the president even met with Robertson in early 2003 to discuss the war in Iraq. For that matter, tune into the 700 Club on any given day and you’ll see high-ranking officials from the Bush administration chatting about today’s biggest issues.
And if we’re going to judge Bush by the company that he keeps, and he’s hanging out with a stark-raving-mad TV preacher, there’s plenty of reason for concern.