IS ROBERTSON OUT OF HIS MIND OR IN THE LOOP?

[Guest guest]

Published on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Is Pat Robertson Out of His Mind or in the Loop?

by Bill C. Davis

 

There is something not only rotten but seemingly deranged in the

state of mind of Republican leaders. I would call Pat Robertson a

Republican leader. He did well in a few Republican primaries back in

1988 until scandal hit the whole Evangelical enterprise, which Mr.

Robertson assumed was a Bush Sr./Lee Atwater conspiracy. It seemed

convenient, he thought, that the scandal hit just as he was hitting

his stride.

Reverend Pat made peace and perhaps a pact with the powers that be

and currently has a direct line to the White House. He, with Jerry

Falwell, claims to have helped make the double-barrel-two term Bush

presidency possible. On Monday the iconic American Christian using

the language of gangsters endorsed the assassination of Hugo Chavez

so we could save 200 billion dollars. The assumption was that the

only two alternatives to dealing with an elected leader who is

critical of the military industrial complex running our country is

to " take him out " or to wage a war. He presents the options and then

chooses the less expensive one.

 

One does pause to wonder if he is not a loose cannon but that the

direct line to the White House runs both ways. If in fact Venezuela

and Iran are considering an oil embargo against the US, this may not

be a random Christian perspective from the baby- faced aw-shucks

father figure for the consumers of sign-on-the-dotted-line religion.

Could this be a request from the top? Either Mr. Robertson is truly

out of his mind or he is " useful, " a word that Rumsfeld loves to use.

When asked about the comment Rumsfeld referred to Robertson as

a " private citizen " and rather than condemn the comment he

said, " private citizens say all kinds of things all the time. Next

question. "

 

How would this endorsement of assassination from the giddy

Evangelical be " useful " and to whom would it be useful? Does a holy

Christian man rattling a saber make any sense to the essential logic

of Christ? On the subject of sabers, rattling or penetrating, Christ

said, if you live by the sword you die by the sword.

 

But here is the most amazing, confounding thing Christ said - Love

your enemy. This phrase means nothing to the most boisterous

Christians like Pat Robertson. To them, this phrase is invisible. In

their minds, it is a soft, silly lapse in the Savior's prescription

for the salvation of the world. The Passion of Christ was a bloody

canvas for paranoid sadism. The prime actors against Jesus, the

alleged center of Pat Robertson's universe, were soldiers taking

orders from the likes of Mr. Robertson. Pat Robertson sees an

assassin and an army as legitimate functionaries in realizing his

view of a safe and decent world.

 

We can certainly paraphrase the question standing before the

president in Crawford: " What noble cause did my son die for? " What

noble cause will be served by Pat Robertson's Fatwa?

 

In December 2000 the incoming administration declared Hugo Chavez a

threat because he was selling oil to Cuba. And now, if Venezuela is

going to block the sale of their nationalized oil to the U.S. what

does that mean to a Christian leader? Does he have investments he's

worried about? Does he believe Venezuela will be a conduit for

terrorism and communism and anti-Christian principles? Does he want

to make that case or would he prefer that his government " off " an

elected leader who just happens to urge OPEC convert officially the

standard of buying oil from the dollar to the Euro?

 

Hugo Chavez speaks at length to his people over the TV - and he reads

to them. One of his favorite authors to read to his people is Walt

Whitman. At the Youth Conference in Caracas earlier this month he

called the people of the U.S. " brothers " to Venezuela. He embraced

the traditions of Walt Whitman and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and

gave them as examples of the progressive history of the U.S. Walt

Whitman understood spirit and America. Pat Robertson contradicts

both.

 

One would think the FCC, under some aspect of the Patriot Act might

revoke Robertson's license to broadcast. If he's out of his mind they

might - if he's in the loop - they won't. Stay tuned.

 

Bill C. Davis can be reached at billcdavis

 

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