“Take him out!”
Hugo Chavez? No, Pat Robertson. Please. Feet (after removal from mouth) first.
Robertson, who doesn’t stop at character assassination when it comes to Venezuela’s elected socialist president, doesn’t speak for the United States and hopefully not for any Christians. He’s simply an evangelical fool who owns his own network and hosts the most-watched religious television show in the country.
But because his pulpit is equal parts politics and religion – and he’s a former presidential candidate – what he says, no matter how outrageous and stupid, gets noticed.
And exploited. America’s enemies, for example, have already exhumed unflattering U.S. involvements in Cuban and Chilean politics. Imagine how this has played on Al Jazeera. And imagine how this has played in Venezuela, which provides 13 per cent of U.S. oil needs.
Armed with his evangelically perverse chauvinism, Robertson’s a national security time bomb. A weak apology didn’t mitigate the injurious impact.
Take him out.
Metaphorically, that is.