28-Oct-07, 07:08 AM

Publisher's Log : Foot in the mouth disease—occupational hazard of imperialist priests

Meet the jovial face of Christo-fascism

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For anyone with half a brain American televangelists are creatures well noted for their reactionary views and appalling hypocrisy. Their existence in our midst, indeed their very success in so many latitudes, attests to the stubborn stupidity of so many people. Now Pat Robertson's latest outburst—surely widely shared among conservatives despite their protestations to the contrary—provides further proof of what these kind, Christian folks are really all about.

Take One. Televangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition (sic) and a strong Bush supporter, openly asks to consider murdering President Hugo Chavez...(note that one of his complaints is that Chavez is against capitalism...In passing, he also pretty much declares that Latin America belongs to the US by virtue of sacrosanct American doctrines...)

Courtesy Media Matters

Take Two. A couple of days later, as controversy engulfs his comments, he chooses prudence-or some would say, cowardice—to get out of the tight spot. "Deny, deny," counseled the attorney...

Cyrano Videologs. Reproduce at will.

CODA: It's worth noting that, as might be expected, most of the media proferred mild rebukes to Robertson, staying punctiliously within the strictest norms of self-restraint, limiting themselves to showing the taped evidence...Such was the rule with CNN's Lou Dobbs and Aaron Brown, for example. Brown, however, could not help burnishing his liberal credentials by seeming to agree with Robertson on the putative despotic nature of Pres. Chavez's regime. As Robertson laid into Chavez, accusing him of being a dictator, Brown is heard quipping, "on that, at least, he'll get no argument." With friends like these, who needs reactionaries?

Incidentally, Robertson's "premature" call for murder may have actually bought some time for President Chavez. By shooting his mouth off way before the Venezuelan leader's character assassination was complete, before the American media noise had attained the requisite hysterical levels of demonization, it trumped the "regime change" rulebook and forced the administration to publicly distance itself from a policy of open gangsterism...Like Don Fanucci, the white-suited early twenty-century Little Italy Mafia don in Godfather 2, who loudly proclaims to be repulsed by the violence of puppets during a religious celebration...the real world Godfathers had to issue the usual sanctimonious denials in the wake of Robertson's faux pas, which, of course, is so much horse manure since for these misleaders a political assassination here, a massacre over there, is just business as usual. (To my knowledge nobody in the mainstream media found the time, guts or knowledge to laugh in the face of such protestations, or to remind Americans of their Government's actual foreign policy record, but that's another story.)

How much time did this flap buy? No one can say. The US ruling circles may stumble upon an opportunity too good to pass, and like any addict to foul play, go for the jugular. Or someone entirely unconnected with such machinations may do it for free: the Venezuelan and Latin American ruling circles are certainly not lacking in brutal henchmen and nutcases. But meantime, you can bet your shirt on this: Many folks in these comfortable spheres may be asking, where is Roberto D'Aubuisson when we need him?

—PG

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