[Mb-civic] Preaching With a Vengeance (Pat Robertson, rhetorical hit man) - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Preaching With a Vengeance
Pat Robertson's Fierce Rhetoric May Have Diminished His Political Clout

By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 15, 2005; Page C01

What do Hugo Chavez and Harriet Miers have in common?

Pat Robertson: The rhetorical hit man who opined several weeks ago that 
Chavez, the Venezuelan president, should be assassinated now has thrown 
down the gauntlet for senators who oppose Miers's nomination for the 
Supreme Court.

"Now they're going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative 
picked by a conservative president and they're going to vote against her 
for confirmation?" he said Thursday on "The 700 Club," his voice 
sarcastic with disbelief. "Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay 
in office."

It's becoming almost routine, this strident talk. Indeed, Robertson, 75, 
has a long history of controversial statements, dating at least to his 
infamous 1991 conspiracist tract, "The New World Order." And he shows no 
sign of slowing down.

This week, he accused Chavez of sending money to Osama bin Laden, making 
nice with the jailed terrorist "Carlos the Jackal" and negotiating with 
Iran for nuclear materials. And after Katrina, Rita and the spate of 
global earthquakes and floods, he's raised the biblical end-of-the-world 
scenario. Or could it be, he's also offered, that it is God's wrath 
against abortion?

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with this man who once equated feminism 
with witchcraft, who said of the State Department: "You've got to blow 
that thing up."

So just who listens to Robertson (other than Chavez and the news media), 
and does he matter in politics? Depending on whom you talk to, Robertson 
is an embarrassment to the conservative movement who has yet to realize 
his own irrelevance, or he is a valuable Christian leader of millions, a 
man still capable of marshaling votes and influencing politics.

All of that can be debated. But we know this: He is founder of the 
Christian Broadcasting Network, where his show, "The 700 Club," beams 
his brand of populist, charismatic Christian evangelism to a daily 
audience of 1 million from his base in Virginia Beach.

"He's not oblivious to the fact that people in Washington will take note 
when he says something, especially something outlandish, but his primary 
audience is his listeners," says Richard Cizik, a senior official with 
the National Association of Evangelicals.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/14/AR2005101401981.html?nav=hcmodule
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