Posted on 08/24/2005 2:37:39 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Pat Robertson's suggestion that the United States assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left some Texas Christian leaders speechless Tuesday.
"I was kind of shocked, like a lot of people were shocked," said the Rev. Sonny Foraker, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Pearland.
"I don't know why he said it," he added. "I wouldn't have said it, and I don't support it."
Robertson, who resigned his ordination as a Southern Baptist minister in 1986 before his presidential bid, made the comments Monday on his television show, The 700 Club , on the Christian Broadcast Network.
Leaders of the Baptist General Convention of Texas issued statements calling Robertson's comments inappropriate and detrimental to the church's message.
"Pat Robertson does not advance the Christian faith by announcing on television his own preferences about who around the world he wants killed," said Phil Strickland, director of the convention's Christian Life Commission.
"Those of us who call for Muslims to condemn terrorism by their brethren cannot be silent when one of ours advocates this kind of violence," said convention Executive Director Charles Wade.
Christian theology does not eschew war, said Craig Mitchell, instructor of Christian ethics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
Indeed, there is a long tradition of just-war theory that allows countries to engage their militaries to punish and prevent acts of aggression, he said.
"Clearly Scripture gives governments authority to go to war, but assassination is another thing all together," Mitchell said. "Assassination is always a criminal act."
The Rev. Gary Moore, senior associate pastor of Second Baptist Church, said that he did not want "to sit in judgment" and of Robertson and that the broadcaster had a right to speak his mind. But Moore did caution that it was important for Christian leaders to be careful of how they use their influence.
"When people look up to you, you have to be careful of what they look up and see."
tara.dooley@chron.com
Pat Robertson ignites war of words
Venezuela calls assassination talk another sign Bush wants Chavez out
By JOHN OTIS and MICHAEL HEDGES Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle August 24, 2005
Pat Robertson's suggestion that American agents should kill Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez aggravated tense relations between the two countries even as the Bush administration moved Tuesday to distance itself from the televangelist's comments.
In Caracas, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Robertson's words were another sign that the Bush administration is out to get Chavez, a leftist who is wildly popular at home and is an outspoken critic of the U.S. government.
"Before, they were openly calling for Chavez's overthrow. Now, the call is to assassinate him," Rangel said.
The State Department on Tuesday denounced the remarks by Robertson, founder of the conservative Christian Coalition of America and a supporter of President Bush.
"Any allegations that we are planning to take hostile action against the Venezuelan government are completely baseless and without fact," said spokesman Sean McCormack. "Pat Robertson is a private citizen, and his views do not represent the policy of the United States."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added that the U.S. military had never considered killing Chavez "to my knowledge, and I think I would have knowledge."
During Monday's broadcast of Robertson's show, The 700 Club , on the Christian Broadcasting Network, the 75-year-old host painted Chavez as a menace intent on spreading communism throughout the hemisphere.
Rather than waging a war, Robertson said, it would be cheaper and easier to assassinate the Venezuelan leader.
"I don't know about this doctrine of assassination. But if (Chavez) thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said.
"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," he said.
Robertson has made incendiary comments before. In 2003, he suggested that the State Department ought to be blown up with a nuclear device.
Still, many Latin Americans take him seriously. The 700 Club is dubbed in Spanish and broadcast around the region. Robertson ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, and his 2 million-member Christian Coalition helped get President Bush elected in 2000 and re-elected last year.
"Mr. Robertson is no ordinary citizen," said Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela's ambassador to the United States. He "has been one of the president's staunchest allies."
As a result, Robertson is viewed in Latin America as having some degree of support within the Bush White House, said Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington and a Chavez critic.
"The way Robertson's declarations will play in Latin America is that Chavez is right and that the U.S. is out to get him," Shifter said.
Since he was elected in 1998, Chavez has pledged to carry out a leftist revolution on behalf of the poor and has denounced U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, Iraq and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Chavez has used his country's vast oil wealth as a counterweight to U.S. influence in Latin America. He has forged close ties to communist Cuba.
Bush administration officials claim that Chavez backs "undemocratic" radical movements in Bolivia and have hinted that he may have ties to Marxist guerrillas in Colombia.
In 2002, U.S. officials crowed when Chavez was briefly ousted in a coup. After Chavez returned to power, the U.S. government channeled millions of dollars to opposition political groups in Venezuela.
As he boarded a flight from Cuba to Jamaica on Tuesday afternoon, Chavez said he had no knowledge of the Robertson controversy.
"I don't even know who that person is," he said.
michael.hedges@chron.com johnotis2002@yahoo.com
Especially if your viewed as a Christian figure..
Pat should have just called the Executive Outcome to do the job instead of telling the world about suggesting Chavez's assasination
He's given Chavez a gift.
Steve Forbes caught a lot of heat for calling Robertson a "toothy flake." I guess he knows a flake when he sees one.
Perhaps. But that's very interesting terminology you're using there.
And it's noted for future reference.
EOM.
Daffy?
Kill Chávez? 'Crazy' TV talk decried
***........................VISA COMPLAINT
U.S. and Venezuelan officials meanwhile also tussled Tuesday over visa issues. Caracas complained that the State Department had denied a visa to a Venezuelan delegate for a conference on violence against women at the Organization of American States' Washington headquarters.
The State Department said the visa had not been approved simply because Asia Villegas, a strong Chávez supporter and health secretary for the Caracas mayor's office, had requested a diplomatic visa but then failed to provide the required proof that she was an employee of the national government.
''She applied twice and we asked her each time to clarify why she was eligible for a diplomatic visa,'' said Brian Penn, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
FORMAL COMPLAINT
Nelson Pineda, Venezuela's acting ambassador to the OAS, said his country nevertheless planned to lodge a formal protest before the regional bloc Thursday.
He said Villegas was a government employee because she is an advisor to the National Women's Institute.
''It would be nave on our part not to believe there were political motivations behind this decision,'' Pineda said.
Villegas is the daughter of the late Cruz Villegas, a well-known union activist in Venezuela and a former leader of the Communist Party there.***
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12458440.htm
More quotes of genius from Robertson:
More thoughts from Pat Robertson:
"The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers."
"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different...More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."
"When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals – the two things seem to go together."
"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that 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 know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."
"[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."
"[Planned Parenthood] is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism – everything that the Bible condemns."
What a moron!
Robertson, who resigned his ordination as a Southern Baptist minister in 1986 before his presidential bid, made the comments Monday on his television show, The 700 Club , on the Christian Broadcast Network.
the 700 Club,....(read, The '699' Club?)
he must be running for president again?
Headline: Some Guy Says Something Provocative!
Indeed he has. Chavez can use that just as we use loose lipped islamite clerics' threats in pointing to the few of islam's worst. Those "on the fence" could make a wrong assessment of the whole, giving fuel to the fires of America's haters...
If Pat really wanted to stir things up he should have used the term "tyrannicide" and suggest that the people of the nation in question would have the right to carry out such an act. That would be a whole 'nother theological ballgame.
The media are more upset about this than they are when it's the president's life being threatened.
And what one of these statements is not true?????????????
BTW I am not a supporter of Pat Robertson.
Embarrassment goes a lot farther and is a better road.
Buy a dress.
Booze him up.
Apply dress.
Take a photo.
Okay, now tell me how effective he would be in Venezuela.
PS The ability to laugh at oneself appears to be missing among dictators and liberals. But I repeat myself.
"What a moron!"
I've read these quotes you posted that Pat Robertson supposedly said. Before passing a complete judgement on his comments, I would want to see them in context. However, even out of context, except for some hyperbole in the comments, I find that I am mainly in agreement with them. I would, respectfully, suggest to Pat to watch his rhetoric because their are so many waiting to pounce on things he says. However, this is true of any religious/social conservative.
You call your blog "The Horse's Mouth." I suggest you reconsider that name. You should consider naming it after the other end of the horse if you feel compeled to call folks like Pat Robertson a "moron."
I totally agree. Sometimes I do have to wonder who some really are on here because even without the rest of the text,overall, the quotes are not bad at all.
They are tough and they certainly are not PC but I find Sheehan much more offensive saying she supports the Freedom Fighters in Iraq.
Thanks!
I think Dr Marten was being sarcastic but without the /s.
90% of those quotes would be things most Freepers would agree with, and I'm sure this isn't lost on Mr Marten. I think he was just making a point about picking a guy up on one strange statement when the rest of what he says makes sense.
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