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Pat Robertson Issues A Fatwa

August 24 2005

Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and former Republican presidential candidate, sounded like he belonged to the Goodfellas Club Monday when he advocated the assassination of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

Mr. Chavez, a populist and a harsh critic of the United States, poses "a terrific danger" and ought to be eliminated, opined Mr. Robertson on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." In the televangelist's eyes, proof of the menace appeared last weekend when Cuba's President Fidel Castro hosted Mr. Chavez and the two indulged in the usual anti-Yankee diatribes.

"I don't know about this doctrine of assassination," said an incensed Mr. Robertson, "but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it. ... 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."

This talk is associated with gangsters in crime syndicates. Believers in the Ten Commandments don't call for whacking people. Only fanatics consider it their holy duty to call for the death of people they dislike. Surely Mr. Robertson doesn't want to be associated with Islamist clerics who issue fatwas, as the Iranian ayatollahs did against the author Salman Rushdie. Also, Mr. Robertson should remember that Mr. Chavez is Venezuela's elected leader and is up for re-election next year.

But perhaps too much is being made of the latest Robertson pronouncement. He might merely be engaging in bombast, which he has done in the past. Two years ago, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. On another occasion, he critiqued feminism as a movement that encourages women "to kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

In a free country, there should be room for the likes of Mr. Robertson, who eventually sink in the mud of their own rhetoric. As for Mr. Chavez, he should be indebted to Mr. Robertson for making Venezuelans of all stripes rally around their leader.

Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-patsy.artaug24,0,6365524.story?coll=hc-headlines-e...