TV preacher fires back at US State Department, says it should be "gutted"

AFP ^ | 10-13-03

[Brian S]

WASHINGTON (AFP) Oct 13, 2003

Just days after being harshly criticized for on-air comments suggesting the US State Department be obliterated with nuclear weapons, prominent conservative televangelist Pat Robertson renewed his attack on

Monday, calling for the agency to be "gutted." An apparently unrepentant Robertson did not retract his earlier comments -- although he allowed they had been "rather graphic" -- and maintained they had been intended to be lighthearted.

The one-time Republican presidential hopeful also said he had mistakenly attributed the sentiment to columnist Joel Mowbray, author of a scathing critique of the State Department.

"I was trying to characterize the rather negative tone in your book in a laughing fashion," Robertson said in an interview with Mowbray to be broadcast later Monday on his nationally televised "700 Club" program.

"I mentioned the question of nuking the State Department," he said, according to a transcript of the interview posted on Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network website (www.cbn.com).

"Mr Mowbray did not use the term 'nuke', he said it should be gutted and I think we ought to make that clear ... Joel did not say 'Nuke the State Department,' so we've changed: We're not going to nuke it, we're going to gut it," Robertson said.

Later, using the word "eviscerated," he said he would like to see "a top to bottom overhaul (of the State Department) with a major portion of the current personnel gone and somebody else taking their place."

Robertson's initial remarks -- also made in an interview with Mowbray, author of "Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens American Security" -- drew vehement protests from the State Department.

Spokesman Richard Boucher called the remarks "despicable" and a senior department official said a protest had been made "at the highest level."

"I lack sufficient capabilities to express my disdain," Boucher told reporters on Thursday. "I think the very idea, though, is despicable."

During the course of the earlier broadcast, Robertson had said that after finishing Mowbray's book he had thought to himself: "If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer."

"I mean, you get through this, and you say, 'We've got to blow that thing up'," Robertson said.

Foggy Bottom is the Washington neighborhood where the State Department's headquarters is located.

Mowbray's book accuses the State Department of endangering the security of the United States by allegedly cavorting with sponsors of terrorism, negligence or incompetence in the visa issuance process and ignoring the travails of US citizens abroad.

The State Department has denied Mowbray's allegations on numerous occasions.

[AD from SpringBay]

Disappearing freedom of speech bump.

[GladesGuru]

How's this proposal? At ten AM on a Tuesday all ground floor doors are to be welded shut; simultanously and without warning.

Then burn the building.

I first proposed this to the lead FL Rep handling education for the Sheeples Republic of FloriDUH as a cure for dealing with incompetence in the Dept. of Education and he laughed. Which proves that elected people can still have a sense of humor. If those who toil in the Legislature can keep their sense of humor, so can the conservative community.

Give the 'nuke 'em' comment a laugh and move on.

PS You just know he hit a sensitive spot by the whining. If they were doing a good job, and were respected, they wouldn't have started up the whine-ry.

Or perhaps we should all chip in and send them a wheel of Liberal Cheese to match their Liberal Whine - you know, soft and rotten at the core.

[Poohbah]

How's this proposal? At ten AM on a Tuesday all ground floor doors are to be welded shut; simultanously and without warning.

Then burn the building.

Only if you weld yourself inside the building and go up in smoke with everyone else.

Do me a favor: cover an extremity you're not planning on using anytime soon with a flammable liquid, ignite it, and then tell me how "funny" the concept of burning alive is.

Tell me what a great joke it is. But only after you've gotten some firsthand belly laughs.

Hey, I mean, the FBI torching the Branch Davidians was just a joke, right?

[jackbill]

Are my humor glands just not in sync with the rest of the world?

Vis a vis the State Department, they really seem to be out of sync.

[Poohbah]

Vis a vis the State Department, they really seem to be out of sync.

I can (and do) deplore the state of affairs at Foggy Bottom without making "nuke DC" jokes.

[OldFriend]

The State Department ought to be considered enemy territory.

Talk about a fifth column!

[upchuck]

Pat Robertson has always seemed a little too slick for me.

But, IMHO, he's hit a major vein here. The State Dept. really, really needs to be cleaned out. Waaaaay too many holdovers from RAT administrations. And they've gotten too damned comfortable. Need to shake them up but good. Not a job for Powell.

[Qwinn]

The State Department has been a nest of infiltrators since before the McCarthy hearings, and it was never cleaned out because of the media circus that hanged Joe precisely because they are on the same side as the infiltrators.

It's funny how no one derides the "show trial" that was the Senate hearings... with the media applauding every denunciation of McCarthy! Ya -think- maybe somebody was being protected?

For 40 years we heard that Alger Hiss wasn't a traitor, and now that it's proven, there's -still- an Alger Hiss Chair at Harvard.

Why would -anyone- think that the State Dept. was ever cleaned out? What would've caused it to happen? If national attention during the McCarthy hearings didn't clean it out, why would it have been cleaned out since, when now they are completely immune to any criticism with a simple cry of "McCarthyism!"?

It's still a nest of Marxists. Most of 'em have worked there for decades. The Secretary of State changing hands every few years changes nothing about the vast, entrenched bureaucracy underneath him that has remained essentially unchanged since the '50's.

I think Ann Coulter realized this, but didn't try to make the point, figuring better to fight one battle at a time. Acknowledging the problem ever existed in the first place is the first step...

Qwinn

[henderson field]

What's wrong with gutting the "State Department?" Every once in awhile, a toilet must be flushed.

[irv]

Are my humor glands just not in sync with the rest of the world?

That's correct. Most of us understand that when a fine man like Pat Robertson talks about "nuking" somebody, he doesn't mean it literally and only the utterly humorless would be silly enough to take it that way.

No, he didn't screw up. He expressed a high level of frustration in unmistakable terms. Okay, some people (like you) did mistake them. How did you manage that, anyway?

[Poohbah]

That's correct. Most of us understand that when a fine man like Pat Robertson talks about "nuking" somebody, he doesn't mean it literally and only the utterly humorless would be silly enough to take it that way.</IThat's correct. Most of us understand that when a fine man like Pat Robertson talks about "nuking" somebody, he doesn't mean it literally and only the utterly humorless would be silly enough to take it that way.

Sorry, in an era of fanatical Muslim terrorists and questions about nuclear surety in at least three nuclear powers, it's not that funny.

Before 9/11, joking about flying an airplane into a tall building was a real thigh-slapper.

It isn't anymore.

No, he didn't screw up. He expressed a high level of frustration in unmistakable terms. Okay, some people (like you) did mistake them. How did you manage that, anyway?

When you lose friends to some Islamist fanatics deciding that they're listening to the Voice of God Himself, come back and lecture me about my lack of humor, OK?

Pat Robertson's little inner voice, the one that says, "You know, that thought is NOT suitable for public utterance," seems to have gotten laryngitis over the years.

[Chu Gary]

"Tell me what a great joke it is. But only after you've gotten some firsthand belly laughs."

Well, I guess we could gas them instead if that would make you feel better.

[edchambers]

Pat seems to have found a sense of humor in his old age but every time he tries to use it he gets crucified.Am I the only one who remembers his pro Arnold comments something like "all us body builders need to stick together."Does anyone really think there is somewhere in a dark underground bunker an evil christian cabal plotting to blow up the state dept?

[Blessed]

I have a great idea. You patroll the internet forums and report everyone who mentions Nuking a post or having had one Nuked.By the way you also may want to start trademark lawsuits on everyone who refers to tissue as Kleenex.Or better yet change your screen name to "Scarecrow".

[Poohbah]

I have a great idea.

Please leave the evaluation of your "great ideas" to those actually qualified for the task. It will save you considerable embarrassment.

[irv]

When you lose friends to some Islamist fanatics deciding that they're listening to the Voice of God Himself, come back and lecture me about my lack of humor, OK?

Happened when I was about 8. And you REALLY need to lighten up.

[Poohbah]

And you REALLY need to lighten up.

Son, you REALLY need to GROW up.

Sorry, certain topics are not funny any more. Deal with it.

[Blessed]

Is it really Bliss?

[Mr. Mojo]

Geez, it's unbelievable that his "nuke" comment was intrepreted to be anything other than a expression -- a figure of speech.

[Poohbah]

Yo, if ignorance is bliss, you'd be in frickin' Nirvana.

Like I said, some things kinda quit being funny two years ago. I expect stuff like Robertson's "light-hearted" reference from someone like Alec Baldwin, not from a "conservative."