Pat Robertson Calls for Assassination of Hugo Chavez!!!

Televangelical tentacles

TV evangelist Pat Robertson is threatening to mobilise millions of his Christian viewers and "de-liberalise" the US judiciary, writes Philip James.

Friday November 19, 2004

There is a defining moment in the life of every news organisation that marks a coming of age. In the case of CNN it was the opening bombardment of the first Gulf war. The upstart cable channel went live to Peter Arnett in Baghdad, while the traditional broadcast networks could only watch from their New York studios in shock and awe.

In the case of the Manchester Guardian, it was the day in 1959 when the paper reached beyond its Mancunian roots to become a national newspaper. And in the case of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson's daily evangelical news broadcast, it was November 3 2004. The day it became clear that George Bush had won a second term.

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This day formally marked the transformation of The 700 Club. No longer could it be viewed as an outlet of relevance only to the loony Christian right. Not only did it join the ranks of the mainstream media. In many ways it supplanted them. Suddenly, if you seriously wanted to take the pulse of America, you had to tune your TV to the news division of televangelism.

The 700 Club has been operating under the radar of traditional journalistic scrutiny for over two decades. Anchored by Pat Robertson, he initially created it as a vehicle to promote his personal political ambitions. After his failed presidential bid in 1988, Robertson founded the Christian Coalition and embarked on an ambitious plan to influence the mainstream political agenda from the inside out.

He used The 700 Club as the marketing and political advocacy tool of this plan. The broadcast's focus is instructing viewers on how they could best lobby elected officials to enact the Christian right's agenda.

Robertson's show regularly has more viewers than CNN. And while the rest of the world wasn't watching he has been phenomenally successful in realising a three part blueprint to essentially take over all branches of the US Government.

Goal number one was to take over Congress, and Robertson can honestly take credit for the Republican revolution of 1994. Of the 52 freshman Republican congressman, who ended four decades of Democratic rule that year, 44 owed their election to the Christian coalition which endorsed them on The 700 Club. The coalition's scorecards, ranking candidates on issues from abortion to marriage and family were a regular feature of the broadcast, promoting hand-picked candidates and discrediting unfavourable ones.

Goal number two was the presidency. George Bush made it to the White House and is there today, because of the lockstep support of The 700 Club's faithful, who make up the bedrock of the "values voter".

Goal number three is yet to be achieved: taking over the legislature. From his anchor chair, Robertson is coordinating an intricate strategy to de-liberalise every court from the Supreme Court down to federal judges at the district level.

The key to Robertson's success so far has been his obsessive attention to legislative details, the minute, often picayune rules that together constitute the levers of political change. In his attempt to wrestle control of the last branch of government his approach is the same.

Up to now arcane Senate rules have impeded the appointment of jurists friendly to the Robertson agenda. So Robertson is using his television pulpit to change them. Current Senate regulations allow a minority of Democrats to prevent votes on judges they don't like from ever taking place by employing a technical filibuster. The filibuster can only be overturned by a super-majority of sixty senators - a number Republicans cannot reach.

But Robertson has discovered that the Senate filibuster rules can be amended at the opening of the next Senate session in January at the discretion of the Senate majority leader Bill Frist - a detail insiders say the Tennessee Republican was not even aware of himself.

So for weeks Robertson has been flashing the senator's telephone number on the screen and imploring viewers to jam the congressional switchboard with demands that Frist change the filibuster rules so that it can be overturned by a simple majority of 51 votes - a number Republicans can muster. Frist is now considering doing just that. Come January the procedural block on a raft of reactionary judges may be lifted before the first gavel comes down.

While the admittedly liberal mainstream media are still scratching their heads, wondering how they missed the tectonic shift in favour of the Christian right in this country, they may still be looking in the wrong place for hints at what the future holds.

CNN's promotional tagline may be "watch what happens next", but to really know what's about to unfold in today's America you need to switch on The 700 Club.

There are many who disagree with my comments, and I respect their opinions. There are others who think that stopping a dictator is the appropriate course of action. In any event, the incredible publicity surrounding my remarks has focused our government's attention on a growing problem which has been largely ignored.

Nope.

Televangelism is a big business . . .

dlowan wrote:

Nope.

I don't think he has to apologize. He is a private citizen and used his freedom of speech. I think what he said was stupid and I don't agree with him but I don't think he should have to apologize.

Baldimo wrote:

dlowan wrote:

Nope.

I don't think he has to apologize. He is a private citizen and used his freedom of speech. I think what he said was stupid and I don't agree with him but I don't think he should have to apologize.

If a radical mullah with his own tv channel and a large number of regular viewers would recommend the assasination of George Bush on tv in the States, would he just be a "private citizen", too?

Private citizens don't usually have their own television stations and found political action groups.

I think what he said was stupid and I don't agree with him but I don't think he should have to apologize.

There's probably no chance that laws prohibiting hateful or inciting speech like the ones in discussion or in effect in the UK will be introduced in the US, I reckon.

What would you have to do to violate any laws at all? What is covered by "free speech" and what isn't?

I realize that we Europeans are a just a bit more cautious when it comes to inflammatory speech, aren't we?

Hence the question what you would have to do in order to actually violate any laws in the US...??

Hence the question what you would have to do in order to actually violate any laws in the US...??