Do you think Pat Robertson will say “The Devil made me do it” on this one?
In his constant, tireless campaign to either discredit religious people who open their mouths to talk about politics or to inspire a straight-jacket factory to rush over and take his measurements, Pat Robertson has called for the assassination of Venezuela’s President.
Actually, when you think about it, perhaps Mr. the Reverend Mr. Robertson is merely trying to cut down on diplomatic costs.
Who needs costly diplomats or policy makers when you can simply have a leader you don’t like such as Hugo Chavez murdered?
Here via Media Matters are his comments — reflecting years of contemplating the meaning of the Bible, ethics and morality:
ROBERTSON: There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he’s going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.
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. And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United … This is in our sphere of influence, so we can’t let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. 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.
But let’s be blunt.
Robertson is a disgrace. This isn’t a matter of left or right or Democrat or Republican.
Hopefully his comments will be universally repudiated so he can then do what every politician or talk show host does when they say something dumb, or extreme and there’s a major controversy: deny he ever made them.
PS, Pat: Didn’t you ever think for one second that if we start sending out hit squads to whack other leaders of hostile countries some countries just might think that it’s OK to do the same to the leaders of our country?
PSS: Is your shirt size medium or large?
UPDATE: It sounds as if Pat isn’t ready to talk yet. The AP: “Electronic pages and a message to a Robertson spokeswoman were not immediately returned Monday evening.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.