The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Daft Pat

I'd been noting that Media Matters has been tracking various lies being spread by Pat Robertson concerning Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer and Patrick Leahy. Now he's upped the ante by publicly calling for the assasination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. (Something I see that Mark Gibson, among others on my blog list, noted Tuesday. My favorite is Monday's Daily KOS report, "Radical Cleric Issues Fatwa to Kill President.") (Now with a quick, late afternoon update.)

A transcript from the August 22nd broadcast of Robertson's 700 Club:

ROBERTSON: There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.

You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

Now, let's see what the Bush administration is or isn't moved to do now that a prominent public figure has called for the assassination of a foreign political leader, especially once the potential political target points out that what's happened is a violation of US law concerning broadcasts. Any guesses? My guess is a move to take another vacation. Oh, wait... I see. They've just distanced themselves from Roberts and declared his comments that of a private citizen. Right. A private citizen in control of a multi-billion dollar broadcasting base.

On a related, almost amusing note, a collection of murder-minded conservative media figures includes comments from Ann Coulter about how the debate should have been "whether to impeach or assassinate" him. Whew! What a harridan! How disproportionate is this woman's value system? Does she call for the castration of the paperboy if the paper's late to her doorstep?

Afternoon Update: Oh, come on... Now Robertson is claiming he was misinterpreted... Thanks to Tammy for sending this last bit along.