Send Pat Robertson to Gitmo

In Mr. Robertson’s neighborhood, assassinate thy neighbor is the commandment du jour.

For those caught unaware, Mr. Robertson opined on yesterday’s 700 Club broadcast that the United States should send in convert soldiers to assassinate Hugo Chavez, the leader of Venezuela. Robertson believes that Chavez is trying to turn the governmental tide in the country to that of communism. Pat ran the numbers and a war is much more expensive than a simple assassination sting attack, so he promoted the idea across the country on his television show.

Assassinating leaders of the free world is something that is frowned upon by most of society. In fact, the few who support it are called terrorists, and we’ve rounded up a bunch of them and stored them for safekeeping in Guantanamo prison cells. I’m sure the boys and girls down there can find an empty cell for Mr. Robertson and his terrorist thoughts.

Certainly each person is entitled to their opinion, but certainly those who reach over a million people can’t go around suggesting we kill leaders of nations, even if their agenda is communist or anti-American. That is what foreign policy and bureaucracy are for.

Personally, I am saddened by the statement Mr. Robertson made. I actually watched the piece on Venezuela right before he made his comments. I tuned in during the middle of the story, and as I was watching I thought: This is really good reporting; what channel is this? And then I saw Mr. Robertson’s twisted smile and changed the channel, so I didn’t get to hear his remarks personally. But I have read all of the transcripts.

But the real letdown is that my opinion of Robertson had been headed upward as of late. He had been a major advocate of the ONE campaign in Africa and had even broken with the Bush administration and acknowledged the reality that condoms prevent STDs and pregnancy and should be promoted in Africa to help control disease and population. But then today my world and support of Pat came crashing down.

Every time visible Christianity takes a step forward, it takes two steps back. Mr. Robertson has said his share of crazy things in the past (look at any news story from today and you can compile quite a list), so it’s not like Rick Warren or Jim Wallis or some other standup Christian said we should kill Chavez. Both liberal and conservative Christianity has the crazy uncle it doesn’t want to talk about (see Jesse Jackson and Jerry Falwell), and for the most part both sides have learned to rebut whichever talking head needs censoring.

So who is the real victim here? The state department has renounced Robertson’s comments and no coup attempt will befall Venezuela anytime soon. The victims then are those who take Mr. Robertson’s opinion as gospel truth. What we have is a case of the blind leading one million other blind. And judging Mr. Robertson’s track record, I don’t think he’ll gain any insight or eyesight anytime soon. I guess that’s what hindsight is for.