Pat Robertson talks foreign policy
After a firestorm of media attention and muted criticism from the Bush administration, conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized Wednesday for comments on his "700 Club" television program earlier this week that appeared to call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Yet even earlier Wednesday, the onetime Republican presidential candidate and founder of the Christian Coalition also insisted that his remarks were misconstrued–that he did not call for an assassination when he suggested the U.S. should "take him [Chavez] out."
His later remarks on Wednesday asked, "Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement." However, earlier Wednesday on his program, Robertson explained that "'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him." Robertson's spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Robertson's original commentary on Monday's "700 Club," as transcribed by the Associated Press, went like this: "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he [Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." Robertson, 75, went on: "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
Chavez, whom the administration has accused of undemocratic actions, compared Robertson and other critics to "rather mad dogs with rabies." In the past, Chavez has alleged that the administration supported a failed coup in 2002. Chavez is a leading Latin American critic of Bush and the U.S.-led war in Iraq and has allied himself with Cuba's Fidel Castro.
This week's controversy is not unique for Robertson. Whatever the intent of Robertson's anti-Chavez rhetoric, this important political ally of President Bush has a long, colorful record of hard-line judgments–and unexpected claims–on foreign policy. A few examples:
- Last year he told an interviewer that Bush assured him before the Iraq war that "we're not going to have any casualties" in the conflict. Robertson said his view was that the war would be "a disaster" and "messy."
- On Liberia, he questioned Bush administration pressure on the leader of strife-torn Liberia as "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country." He later said his remarks were misunderstood as "unqualified support" for the Liberian leader.
- As a candidate in 1988, he contended that his Christian Broadcasting Network knew where American hostages had been held and that they could have been rescued.
- In a 2003 interview on the "700 Club," he interviewed the author of a harsh critique of the State Department and summarized the book as arguing that "We've got to blow that thing up." State called the comments "despicable," and Robertson later said he could have phrased his own criticism better.
- He has called the United Nations a move toward "one-world government."
- He once asserted that the Soviet military had re-established missile forces in Cuba.
- He has described the intent of Islam as laid out by the Prophet Mohammed as one of "submission–it doesn't mean peace." And he has likened the war on terrorism to "a religious struggle we are involved in. It is a clash of cultures."
When Pat Robertson does foreign policy, there are few forgettable remarks.
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