{"id":9503,"date":"2007-01-03T10:24:41","date_gmt":"2007-01-03T15:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9503.html"},"modified":"2007-01-03T10:24:41","modified_gmt":"2007-01-03T15:24:41","slug":"pat-robertson-still-hearing-voices-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/pat-robertson-still-hearing-voices-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Robertson, still hearing voices"},"content":{"rendered":"

TV preacher Pat Robertson doesn’t just sit around doing 2,000-pound leg presses<\/a> all day, sometimes he appears on his television program to share messages he receives from God with the rest of us. He’s generous that way.<\/p>\n

In his latest instance of sharing wisdom from above, Robertson wants us all to know that we’ll have to face another terrorist catastrophe<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n

Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a “mass killing” late in 2007.<\/p>\n

“I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network.<\/p>\n

“The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”<\/p>\n

Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat. God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The AP kindly (and gently) noted that the divine “words of knowledge” Robertson allegedly receives from God often don’t pan out. God told Robertson that Bush would win a second term in a landslide (he didn’t), that Social Security privatization would pass in 2005 (it didn’t), and that serious storms and possibly a “tsunami” were going to crash into America’s coastline in 2006 (they didn’t).<\/p>\n

Asked to clarify, Robertson told the AP, “I have a relatively good track record. Sometimes I miss.”<\/p>\n

Sure, Robertson may be crazy, but his political relevance makes his lunacy worth remembering, for a few reasons.
\n
\nFirst, the AP didn’t mention it, but Robertson did give himself an out<\/a> yesterday. “A lot of these things can be reversed,” Robertson told his audience, “we just need to do a lot of praying.” In other words, if there is no “mass killing” in late 2007, Robertson will no doubt say, “See? People prayed and the attacks were prevented, all thanks to me.”<\/p>\n

Second, his “sometimes I miss” defense doesn’t seem particularly persuasive. If Robertson is receiving messages directly from the Big Guy, and the Big Guy is all-knowing and infallible according to Robertson, shouldn’t these predictions\/observations be entirely reliable?<\/p>\n

And, finally, every time I mention Robertson, I get emails insisting that he’s just some clown who no longer matters. His heyday has long since passed and pointing out Robertson’s lunacy is hardly worth the bother. Obviously, I disagree. <\/p>\n

We are, unfortunately, still talking about a man with about a million viewers a day, many of whom contribute to his cause and nearly all of whom take his political marching orders seriously. We’re also talking about a man whose religious ministries collect millions of tax dollars<\/a> from the Bush administration. Hysterical ranters on street corners usually don’t get the luxury of lucrative federal contracts.<\/p>\n

For that matter, Robertson remains a key ally of powerful GOP officials. The president has appeared at two Robertson-hosted events, and Bush even met with Robertson<\/a> 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 and Republicans from Congress chatting about today’s biggest issues.<\/p>\n

Indeed, immediately after Tom DeLay was forced from his leadership post, whom did he turn to? Who else? Pat Robertson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Robertson is, to be sure, mad as a hatter, but as long as he’s a major GOP player, highlighting his lunacy is worth the trouble. Perhaps the more salient question is: what does this say about the modern GOP?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TV preacher Pat Robertson doesn’t just sit around doing 2,000-pound leg presses all day, sometimes he appears on his television program to share messages he receives from God with the rest of us. He’s generous that way. In his latest instance of sharing wisdom from above, Robertson wants us all to know that we’ll have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}