Two Asses In A Nation

I have a general editorial policy when it comes to the public utterances of Christian Coalition and 700 Club founder Pat Robertson: No comment. The reason why seems very straightforward, at least to me: I don't take the mumblings of cranks seriously, and therefore feel no compulsion to attack each new verbal pants-ful as it emerges from his pie-hole. Besides, it isn't as if the entire Left isn't on hot-standby to jump up and down on him as it is. I figure it's enough for me to leave him twisting in the winds of his own thoughtless foolishness.

Consequently, when Revrund Pat advocated the assassination of Venezuelan dictator and Castroite disciple Hugo Chavez the other day, I just shook my head and went on about my business.

But after the expected furor (example one, example two, example three), PR today said that "he didn't mean it" and that he hadn't mentioned the word "assassination" - which flies in the face of the videotape. And to even read him try to wiggle out of his earlier comments by this Clintillian formulation....:

"I said our special forces should 'take him out.' 'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping.

"There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time."

....man, that is just sad - and painful.

But leave it to Newsmax to dig up a counterpoint:

Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson prompted a firestorm of media outrage on Tuesday after he suggested that the Bush administration should assassinate a foreign leader who posed a threat to the U.S. - in this case, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

But when senior Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the same kind of assassination policy in 1997, the press voiced no objection at all.

Fresh from his influential White House post, Stephanopoulos devoted an entire column in Newsweek to the topic of whether the U.S. should take out Saddam Hussein.

His headlined? "Why We Should Kill Saddam."

"Assassination may be Clinton's best option," the future "This Week" host urged. "If we can kill Saddam, we should."

Though Iraq war critics now argue that by 1997, the Iraqi dictator was "in a box" and posed no threat whatsoever to the U.S., Stephanopoulos contended that Saddam deserved swift and lethal justice.

"We've exhausted other efforts to stop him, and killing him certainly seems more proportionate to his crimes and discriminate in its effect than massive bombing raids that will inevitably kill innocent civilians," the diminutive former aide contended.

Stephanopoulos even offered a way to get around the presidential ban on foreign assassinations:

"If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it."...

The one-time top Clinton aide said that, far from violating international principles, assassinating Saddam would be the moral thing to do, arguing, "What's unlawful - and unpopular with the allies - is not necessarily immoral."

Stephanopoulos also noted that killing Saddam could pay big political dividends at home, saying the mission would make Clinton "a huge winner if it succeeded."

That's quite a snootful just in the current left-wing "anti-war" context, but all the moreso when laid alongside this latest Robertson eructation.

Probably the biggest irony of all is that if Robertson truly does, or did, wish to see the Bush Administraton carry out a hit on Chavez, or if the White House had any plans to do so in the near or distant future, his big fat mouth became Comrade Hugo's chief life insurance policy.

Hey, maybe that's the scoop here - Revrund Pat is really a secret Chavez supporter, and he used this calculated public statement to head off an imminent threat to the Venezuelan strongman's life. The old reverse-psychology "triangulation" gag.

Hey, if Robby is going to start channeling Bill Clinton testifying about the Gap dress, anything is possible.