{"id":25,"date":"2005-08-24T19:02:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-25T01:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/?p=25"},"modified":"2005-11-21T03:25:48","modified_gmt":"2005-11-21T03:25:48","slug":"the-american-terrorist-pat-robertson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/the-american-terrorist-pat-robertson\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Terrorist &#8211; Pat Robertson"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both;\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wilburstreet.com\/weblog\/uploaded_images\/robertson-705071.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wilburstreet.com\/weblog\/uploaded_images\/robertson-703816.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>If you haven&#8217;t heard it already, conservative religious rightwinger &#8211; Pat Robertson &#8211; said on his &#8220;700 Club&#8221; show that we should assassinate Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>Now, minus all of the boring details, this is what Pat Robertson said originally:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If he thinks we&#8217;re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it.  It&#8217;s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.  We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.  We don&#8217;t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It&#8217;s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Amid much public backlash here in America, from Venezuela, and from around the world, Robertson apologized today, 48 hours after he made the statement.  In the &#8220;apology&#8221; (which was more of a clarification), he said he was misinterpreted.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement,&#8221; he said in a written statement.  I didn&#8217;t say &#8216;assassination.&#8217; I said our special forces should &#8216;take him out.&#8217; And &#8216;take him out&#8217; can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time,&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now, &#8220;take him out&#8221; to me means assassination.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday that Robertson has the right of any private citizen to say whatever he wants but added that the broadcaster&#8217;s remarks &#8220;do not represent the views of the United States.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also dismissed Robertson&#8217;s comments Tuesday, saying &#8220;our department doesn&#8217;t do that kind of thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Alvarez said the Christian Coalition, which Robertson started but no longer leads, claims some 2 million members and helped jump-start President Bush&#8217;s 2000 presidential campaign after his New Hampshire primary loss to Sen. John McCain.<\/p>\n<p>He has suggested in the past that a meteor could strike Florida because of unofficial &#8220;Gay Days&#8221; at Disney World and that feminism caused women to kill their children, practice witchcraft and become lesbians. <\/p>\n<p>And that, my friends, is insanity.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both; padding-bottom: 0.25em;\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven&#8217;t heard it already, conservative religious rightwinger &#8211; Pat Robertson &#8211; said on his &#8220;700 Club&#8221; show that we should assassinate Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. Now, minus all of the boring details, this is what Pat Robertson said originally: &#8220;If he thinks we&#8217;re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/the-american-terrorist-pat-robertson\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The American Terrorist &#8211; Pat Robertson&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wilburstreet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}