As I'm sure you all have, I've been catching the story over the past couple days on Pat Robertson's recollections that Dubya told him there would be no U.S. casualties in the Iraq invasion. The official response from the White House is that Robertson either misheard or misremembered. After all, it would be as silly for the President to say that as, well, him to say that Osama bin Laden's location didn't concern him much, and that he didn't think about him often. He'd have to be a moron to say that, eh?
Back to the original story, here's a chunk from the first of the two links above:
"I emphatically stated that, 'I believe 'the blessing of heaven is upon him,' and I am persuaded that he will win this election and prevail on the war against terror in order to keep America safe from her avowed enemies," Robertson said.
In his CNN interview, the religious leader described Bush on the eve of the invasion as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."
"You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on CNN's "Paula Zahn Now."
"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "He said that's when the president told him he did not expect casualties from the invasion.
The thing that's creepiest about this is that Robertson himself, being one of the God-tetched himself, doesn't realize how what he apparently revels in - this sense of clear-eyed Righteousness - is gravely frightening to many of us. This is one of the things that distinguishes a world-class threat such as Adolf Hitler from a petty, local, self-interested dictator such as Saddam Hussein. It's entirely too easy for me to picture and hear the exchange as Robertson described it, and it underscores one of the central reasons I fear the idea of George W. Bush continuing in control of this nation's military.
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