Too Radical For PAT FREAKIN' ROBERTSON!

First, a blast from the past:

• "Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."


• "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them."


• "Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals -- the two things seem to go together."


• "There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore."

This cornucopia of wingnuttery is brought to you courtesy of Pat Robertson, the televangelist's televangelist, the grand high poobah of the Religious Right, the Dark Lord of American Radical Fundamentalism himself. There are few names more respected by the lockstep brigade or feared by the reality-based community. And here's what he has to say about Bush's detachment from reality:

Robertson, in an interview with CNN that aired Tuesday night, said God had told him the war would be messy and a disaster. When he met with Bush in Nashville, Tenn., before the war Bush did not listen to his advice, Robertson said, and believed Saddam Hussein was an evil tyrant who needed to be removed.

"He was just sitting there, like, 'I'm on top of the world,' and I warned him about this war," Robertson said.

"I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties.' 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.' 'Well,' I said, 'it's the way it's going to be.' And so, it was messy. The Lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster and, B, messy."

The White House is calling Pat Robertson a liar. Let me repeat that for emphasis: The White House is calling the most famous and prominent fundamentalist televangelist in the world a liar:

• White House and campaign advisers denied Bush made the comment, with adviser Karen Hughes saying, "I don't believe that happened. He must have misunderstood or misheard it."


• "Obviously, we already had casualties in Afghanistan at the time. If you look at that, that (the comment) was not consistent with what was going on," [Hughes] said.


• White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Of course, the president never made such a comment."

All from the article quoted above.

Now, it would neither shock nor dismay me that one of these vile, despicable leaders is a liar. Still, it is, IMNSHO, deeply telling that a) Pat Robertson would feel a need to create potential distance between himself and Bush's Folly, and b) the White House is so scared and desperate regarding any blowback on said Folly that they're willing to risk alienating Robertson's legions of fundie sheeple by directly contradicting him.

Then again, things are already looking touchy between the political and religious lovebirds.

Influential American evangelist Pat Robertson said Monday that Evangelical Christians feel so deeply about Jerusalem, that if President George W. Bush were to "touch" Jerusalem, Evangelicals would abandon their traditional Republican leanings and form a third party.

Maybe there's some payback going on here. Maybe a rat's hearing "Nearer My God To Thee." Maybe someone's eager to try out his political muscle on his own. Regardless of the reasons, Robertson looks willing to ditch God's Own Party, or at least God's Bush...because this bunch is too whacked even for him. Bush, meanwhile, is poised to make his biggest mistake of the election season: alienating his base.

Feel the love.

(/) Roland X
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