Does God hate Pat Robertson?

We always knew Pat Robertson was crazy, but this week we found out how low he could stoop.

Run a Google search on Pat Robertson or scan any of the hundreds of articles that have been written about him in the last couple days, and you can scroll through pages and pages of foolishness he has spouted.

Of his most quotable quotes: the Constitution is a document only for Christians; he would keep non Christians out of government; and that the white people of South Africa’s apartheid needed protection for their vote.

Here is one of my favorite Pat Robertson quotes, “You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them.”--Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, January 14, 1991.

But this week he went a step beyond foolish. He pranced around ridiculous and teetered on dangerous. What makes this so disgusting was that he did this while claiming the mantle of a man of God.

NO RIGHT TO LIFE?
Like most people, I was aghast and shocked to hear — and see — Pat Robertson, from the set of a religious TV show, smirk into the camera, look us right in the eye, and proclaim that a human being should be assassinated. Killed. He even suggested the military could do it covertly. And then he offered the rationales that it would be cheaper than starting a war and that the oil would still flow. Convenience and economics.

Even the most hardened criminals with mountains of evidence have to undergo a formality called a trial before they can be put to death in this and most coun-tries. But not in Pat’s world. Pat Robertson has decided that Hugo Chavez is dangerous and that is enough to sentence him to death. Innocent until proven guilty? Not anymore. Any preacher can pronounce you guilty and call for your head.

Is Chavez a bad guy? I would say the jury is still out, but there hasn’t even been a trial. Under our legal system, the accused gets to live until someone presents evidence, the accused has an opportunity to refute it, and a jury of 12 returns a verdict. If Scott Peterson could get that much, shouldn’t a head of state?

And whatever happened to their precious right to life? Is life in its begining stages any more sacred than after a lifetime of choices?

PRIDE GOETH BEFORE DESTRUCTION
What would make Pat Robertson think he had the right to call for another per-son’s life? Imagine the arrogance it would take to not only think it, but also to say it into a camera that you know is beaming into millions of homes. He has said so many outrageous things over the last 20 years, without consequence, that he felt himself invincible.

And lest we be fooled into thinking it was the slip of the tongue, he went an entire day while this story brewed without a comment. He didn’t rush back out to apologize or straighten the record if he was misunderstood. For almost 24 hours while people gasped in horror, Pat Robertson was silent. He meant it.

LYING LIPS ARE AN ABOMINATION UNTO THE LORD
To make things worse, he came out the next day and claimed that he didn’t even say it. With the benefit of reflection and I’m sure a few calls from his colleagues begging him to recant, Pat Robertson looked into the same camera and said it didn’t happen. As if we didn’t witness it the first time?!

Now that couldn’t have been a slip of the tongue either. He had an entire day to plan what he was going to say. He thought about it. Meditated on it. Maybe even prayed about it. And then lied about it.

He knew what he said. To say otherwise is just a deliberate lie. That’s what he would tell any of us.

A COWARDLY RESPONSE
As if advocating violence and compounding it with lying wasn’t enough, he al-lowed other preachers to go out and fend for him. An even more disgusting dis-play was watching pastors like Rev. Ted Haggard, from the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, tap dance around issues of law and morality while trying to defend Pat Roberts.

Some pastors denounced Pat Robertson. Others tried to cover him in the cloth – the First Amendment cloth. Pastors were defending his right to call for a man’s death while saying they didn’t believe in killing. It was a sad day for Christian-ity.

And Pat did nothing but watch.

THE APOLOGY WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
Finally, Pat Robertson issued an apology of sorts on his web site. The accusa-tion and the cover up happened live on TV. The apology needed to be down-loaded. He’s a killer (encouraging someone's death is no different in my book), a liar and a coward.

The actions we have seen this past week are clearly counter to any Biblical teaching. The same Bible also teaches that God's love is unconditional, but some things piss Him off — just as they do to us.

“These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” Proverbs 6:16-19

Count them up, and draw your own conclusions. I won't sentence Pat Robertson to death, but he does have to live with this.

What honor?

I am tired of hearing Bush’s latest talking point about troops killed in Iraq. The president keeps repeating that we honor their service by completing the mission.

Honor?

Where is the honor in continuing an engagement that everyone now agrees was based on erroneous information? Where’s the honor in sticking to a strategy that clearly doesn’t seem to be working? Where is the honor in continuing down a road that seems to be costing Americans far more in lives and money than anyone foresaw, without any effort to re-evaluate the approach?

According to this thinking, we honor the dead by ensuring more fall to the same fate.

Here’s a thought. If you want to show respect, address the issues that led to the soldiers being killed in the first place. Make sure they have enough troops to defend themselves, enough armor to protect themselves, a clear strategy for engagement and withdrawal. I'm sure that is a form of honor all the troops would appreciate.

Honor: a : good name or public esteem : REPUTATION b : a showing of usually merited respect : RECOGNITION example: pay honor to our founder.

A supreme pick

What’s a disgruntled Democrat to do when the president nominates a respectable Republican to the highest court?

We learned last week when President Bush nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge John G. Roberts Jr. for the Supreme Court.

Bush introduced his choice for the nation’s 109th justice July 19 in a prime time East Room ceremony and, as they say, flipped the script.

A portrait of Roberts emerged as a lawyer and jurist who earned solid conservative credentials but built a strong resume. His profile exposes him as man with a sharp legal mind who knows how to temper his views with a dose of practicality. He is affable, charming, and most of all, fully qualified. He also passes the Norman Rockwell test, with a family that includes two precocious toddlers.

“Qualified and likeable, what do we do with that,” Dems wondered aloud.

I learned the next morning when I received this email dispatch from John Kerry:

“Dear Nate (Why does John think we are on a first name basis?),

This much is clear already. Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O’Connor (Don’t you like it when politicians point out the blatantly obvious?).

Last night we learned that President Bush wants to replace a woman who voted to uphold Roe v. Wade with a man who argued against Roe v. Wade, and that sends a clear signal that this White House remains bent on opening old wounds and dividing America.”

He “argued against Roe v. Wade” — there was the totality of John Kerry’s objection to Judge Roberts. We were expecting the second coming of Robert Bork and got a man who “argued against Roe v. Wade.”

Here is some free advice for John Kerry and his party: you won’t do any better than this. President Bush is not going to nominate a liberal or even a Sandra Day O’Connor. If you got a nominee who is known for being fair, you should be celebrating.

Here’s what you do, confirm Judge Roberts unanimously. Practically speaking, you won’t defeat him, and strategically it could pay dividends for you.

The Republicans have been doing a moderately successful job of painting Democrats as obstructionists. They have been hammering “liberals” for not giving nominees to lower courts an “up or down vote.” Confirm Judge Roberts unanimously, and you can silence all that nonsense.

Save your weapons for a candidate you know that you really can’t live with. If you confirm Judge Roberts, you will have credibility to wage appropriate battle against the next Robert Bork. No longer will anyone be able to paint you as an obstructionist because you will always be able to point at Judge Roberts and say, “give us a decent candidate and we have proved that we will do the right thing.”

Spend your political capital fighting someone that everyone acknowledges is fair and qualified, and Americans will shake their heads every time you object to a nominee. “If we couldn’t trust you to be fair to a guy who was a good pick, how can we trust you on any others?”

The fact that John Kerry doesn’t have the good sense to see this and fall in line is probably only one of many reasons he isn’t the person picking the nominee.

Bombs and stones may break our bones but our web-site...

Someone created a website, www.werenotafraid.com, as a response to the latest terrorist attack in London. Now do-gooders on both sides of the Atlantic are rushing to post pictures of themselves, their pooches, their parents and kids...all with the headline "We're not afraid."

I, too, paused with a sentimental, yet defiant smile until I thought about folly of this symbolic stunt. First, do terrorists really care if we post our pictures on a web site? Perhaps they will be hunkered down in their safe house, wearing their FREE SADAM t-shirts when they'll see the Jeanie Moss piece on CNN. They'll gasp in horror, pop open their laptops and log on (using their neighbor's wireless signal). They'll see pages and pages of defiant Brits and Americans boasting that they aren't afraid, curse Allah that the infidels have responded in such an unexpectedly strong fashion, and immediately convert to Christianity. Or... they'll chuckle and strap another five pound bag of fertilizer on the newest recruit and wait.

What makes the site even more ridiculous is that it simply isn't true. We ARE afraid. Terrorists strike a continent away, and we immediately ratchet up the terror alert to Orange. Up until last week, your bladder could explode during the first 30 minutes leaving from or last 30 minutes arriving to Washington's Reagan National Airport, but your fanny could not leave the seat. If so, you'd be gang tackled by all the undercover marshals and perp walked to the nearest federal facility.

Try and board a plane without stripping down to your bare feet lately? Now they want to do the same thing for Amtrak trains. You don't even have to travel to feel the effects. The federal government wants to be able to see all the books you check out of the local library, as well as the web sites you've visited.

All this doesn't sound like the reaction of people who aren't afraid, and we aren't fooling the terrorists by emailing our pictures in. We seem to be fascinated with symbolic feel-good gestures: wearing the flag pins on our lapels, the yellow ribbon magnet on our cars, and now posting our pictures on a web site. If we could only get that kind of support to change the policies that make us such attractive targets.

You can't fire me. I stay!

Ever wonder what it would be like to have a job where you couldn't be fired for forced to retire? The Supreme Court Justices know.

Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80 and in frail health, smacked down the chattering class last week by announcing he had no intention of retiring. Sure he's dying of cancer. Sure he can barely get around. Sure he could barely raise his hand to swear in President Bush during the inauguration. But he's not retiring, and you can't make him. How's that?!

Not even federal workers have it that good. At some point, you have to submit retirement papers. Why should the justices be able to serve until death do them part? Perhaps it is time to look at a new system that gives them a set number of years on the bench -- one that staggers the end of their tenures so no one presi-dent can stack the bench. Maybe justices should have a mandatory retirement age. Why should they be exempt the rules that govern the rest of the workforce? Is this really in the best interest of the country?

Leak or the lie, Wilson gets leveled

If Joe Wilson is complaining that the White House tried to ruin him by outing his wife, he probably figures he’ll give them another chance to do the job right.

Wilson is now vocally complaining...aligning himself with Democratic senators...and playing right in to the Republican strategy to fight this latest Karl gate.

Check this out from a July 13 article in the Washington Post:

"The emerging GOP strategy -- devised by Mehlman and other Rove loyalists outside of the White House -- is to try to undermine those Democrats calling for Rove's ouster, play down Rove's role and wait for President Bush's forthcoming Supreme Court selection to drown out the controversy, according to several high-level Republicans.

Mehlman, who said he talked with Rove several times in recent days, instructed GOP legislators, lobbyists and state officials to accuse
Democrats of dirty politics and argue Rove was guilty of nothing more than dis-couraging a reporter from writing an inaccurate story, according to RNC talking points circulated yesterday."

The circular nature of this whole story is so ridiculous. It started, supposedly, when the Republicans were trying to discredit Wilson for crossing them. Now it ends with the Republicans using the same tactics of which they are originally accused while they are denying it.

The White House can't comment about comments they made about an investigation that they shouldn't have commented on originally.

And now Joe Wilson is being destroyed the way the Republicans should have probably done it the first time.

Meanwhile in the rest of America....who won Dancing with the Stars?

What crime, Beth?

Am I the only person in the world who thinks the Aruban government needs to release everyone they are holding in the Natalie Holloway case and quit assuming it is a crime?

Natalie Holloways's mom has been so effective at drumming up media coverage and casting suspicion on the last three people to be seen with her daughter that everyone seems to have overlooked one significant fact: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF A CRIME!

There is no grassy knoll, no bloody glove, no hair, no fiber, no claims of responsibility from Al Qaeda, nothing.

Instead, Aruban police have been acting like Beth Holloway-Twitty has some Abu Ghraib pictures of them. Up until recently, they have arrested, released and detained anyone she wanted. When they finally decided to follow their own minds, Beth threw a hissy.

I'm sorry for your grief, Beth, but there is no evidence that Natalie didn't just cut her hair and hop on a Greyhound to Vegas.

That whole proximity argument is ridiculous. Being in the back seat of a car on the receiving end of Natalie's southern hospitality doesn't make you a killer. That wouldn't hold water in a U.S. Court and it shouldn't in Aruba. Johnnie Cochrane (God rest his soul) would have a field day if the LAPD used that as a reason to arrest Todd Bridges or any of the Drummond kids. Arrest an honor student son of a judge and Johnnie could phone that in from the Armani store.

Instead, these boys were held in jail for weeks while everyone assumed they were guilty. Let's all take a deep breath and call this what it really is: a missing persons case and not a murder investigation.