Robertson clarifies: 'Gut,' not 'nuke,' State

Television evangelist Pat Robertson defended remarks made on his show in which he suggested the State Department's headquarters be blown up with a nuclear weapon.

But Robertson explained on his program yesterday he simply was trying to characterize, in a "laughing fashion," the negative tone of author Joel Mowbray's book "Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens American Security."

In his clarification, Robertson said of the agency's Foggy Bottom headquarters: "We’re not going to nuke it, we’re going to gut it."

In his original interview with Mowbray, the evangelist said after he read the author's book he thought, 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer,'" according to a transcript on the website of his Christian Broadcasting Network.

"I mean, you get through this, and you say [to yourself], 'We've got to blow that thing up.' I mean, is it as bad as you say?" Robertson asked.

Mowbray's book alleges the State Department appeases sponsors of terrorism, ignores U.S. citizens abroad who are in trouble and mishandles visas, to the detriment of security.

Robertson invited Mowbray, a columnist for National Review, back for yesterday's program and asked him to comment on the State Department's reaction.

Mowbray said, "I obviously would not have chosen the same words you did, and probably if you had to think about it, you might not as well. But it's amazing to me that they reacted as they did, because they never want to criticize, at least if you're a foreign dictatorship."

The columnist said in 1988, when Saddam Hussein killed 100,000 of his own people with chemical weapons, the State Department's reaction was to "fiercely fight any efforts" to issue criticism.

Further defending his remarks, Robertson noted Mowbray's book referred to the opinion of members of President Reagan's cabinet that the State Department's career administration should be "gutted."

"Well, what gutted means is you have to go in and you have to grab hold of the culture, and you have to challenge it and change it," he said. "But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, personnel is culture. So you have to change the people of the State Department."

Mowbray said Reagan's secretary of state, George Schultz, did not have much success trying to work with the career officers. What needs to be done, he said, is to "bring in outside leadership, fresh blood and infuse the place with a different mind set, one that does not have this dual emphasis on stability and making friends."

The State Department needs to have the mindset of President Reagan, he said, to "look evil in the eye, call it for what it is, and then sit down at the negotiating table."

"The State Department thinks that you have to make nice with countries like North Korea and Iran, so they can hold hands and be friends with the Iranian Mullahs and the Syrian dictatorship," Mowbray said. 'They don't like these people, but they think they need to be nice with them in order to have agreements with them. Whereas Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union 'the evil empire,' and he still sat down and had more agreements with them than any other president before him."

Why did the State Department types become so "outraged" at Robertson, whose political influence peaked over a decade ago? "The 700 Club" has a faithful audience, but a small one, no more than two million per week. Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage have far larger audiences. Additionally, Robertson has a longstanding, well known tendency to use intemperate language, or at least not criticize those who do, e.g., the incident right after the 9/11 attack on America where Jerry Falwell said on "The 700 Club" that the attack was a judgement on America because of our national sins of abortion, pornography, deviant sex, etc. It is worthy to note that Robertson's remarks were made in the context of excessively slipshod perofrmance by the State Department to the terrorist threat.

I believe the reason for the State Department's outrage is the conflict between the liberal, internationalist career civil servants that dominate that department and the neo-conservative faction that largely pushed for aggressive and largely unilateral actions against Afghanistan and Iraq. On a larger scale, it is the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the staff of Foreign Affairs (the magazine publichsed by the Council on Foreign Relations) vs. the Heritage Foundation and The Weekly Standard.

The Christian Right has allied with the neo-conservatives on mattters of foreign affairs. Being predominantly dispensationalist (that is, believing the covenantal promises to the Jewish people in the Old Testament are still in effect in the present time), they have a common interest with the neo-conservatives, who favor a strong Israel and aggressive policies to crush Islamic extremism in the Middle East. The neo-conservatives pose the greatest threat to the liberal internationalists at the State Department since the Reagan era, or perhaps as far back as the 1920s, when isolationists, pro-tariff protectionists, and commercial interests overwhelmed the nascent internationalist faction.

In essence, the State Department is using Robertson's remarks as a club against the neo-conservatives, using his "nuke" malaprop as the club. They would much prefer a restoration of the Clinton regime because of the more pro-U.N., pro-subordination of American interest attitude of the previous administration. These people are the consummate Beltway insiders, effete snobs par excellence.

Robertson may have become as the Jocelyn Elders or the Carol Moseley-Braun of the Right. This is a shame, for I admire much of what he accomplished in the 1980s and early 1990s in mobilizing conservative evangelicals as a political force. But public figures, such as Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh, have a certain, limited shelf life because they are only human and suffer from personal foibles. It may be time for both men to let others take their place.

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