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CNN.com – Robertson: Chavez remarks misinterpreted – Aug 24, 2005

CNN) — Conservative religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Wednesday that his remarks about the removal of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were taken out of context and that he never called for the killing of the Latin American leader.

I didn’t say ‘assassination.’ I said our special forces should ‘take him out.’ And ‘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. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time,” Robertson said on “The 700 Club” program.

The controversy began Monday when Robertson called Chavez “a terrific danger” bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas.

“If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it,” said Robertson on Monday’s program. “It’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,” he said. “We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one 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.”

Robertson Apologizes for Calling for Assassination

Robertson, 75, at first responded by insisting that his remarks had been misinterpreted by the news media.

“Wait a minute, I didn’t say ‘assassination.’ I said our Special Forces should ‘take him out,’ and ‘take him out’ can be a number of things, including kidnapping,” he said on yesterday’s edition of his flagship show on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Yesterday evening, however, Robertson issued a written clarification acknowledging that he had used the word “assassination.” He said he had ad-libbed his original comments Monday, which included the sentence “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it.”

Robertson’s clarification went on to say: “Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.”

Robertson Calls for Chavez Assassination By Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writer

Robertson, 75, made a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988. Although his influence among evangelical Christians appears to have waned in recent years, he still has a substantial personal following in Virginia Beach, where he founded Regent University in 1978, and on television. He made his remarks on “The 700 Club,” a news show that claims to have a million daily viewers.

He has sparked controversy in the past by praying for God to create vacancies on the Supreme Court; calling Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, a “robber and brigand”; defending Liberian warlord Charles Taylor; and agreeing with Jerry Falwell that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were God’s punishment for “pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU and the People for the American Way.”

Pat Robertson’s Gift

WE WON’T even pretend to have given television evangelist Pat Robertson’s latest obnoxious utterance much thought, considering his long history of pious bloviations that have made him come across to most Americans as, well, witless. …

[W]e would have preferred to allow the Christian Coalition’s founder to continue his slide from America’s mainstream into the obscurity he has so richly earned. … an act of stupidity only he could outdo

But Mr. Robertson’s slide from the mountain peak of evangelical pontification was not because of his politics but because of his mouth. When his words were not ill-advised, they were moronic; when not callow, downright loopy, as in: predicting God would curse Orlando with a hurricane if gay-pride events were celebrated at Disney World; wishing a nuclear bomb would be dropped on the State Department; and suggesting that America had it coming on Sept. 11 because God had been insulted “at the highest level of our government.” …

Still, it is curious how some of Mr. Robertson’s fellow travelers have not been able to locate their tongues over this latest Robertson-inspired international disturbance. The Family Research Council and Traditional Values Coalition spare no moments in rushing forth to denounce irresponsibility on the part of those they dislike. Not so with Mr. Robertson, who only called for the United States to murder a foreign head of state. Even the Bush administration can’t bring itself to censure a fellow conservative who publicly calls for his country to break the law. “Inappropriate,” the State Department managed to say. The White House, embarrassed by Mr. Robertson yet again but too afraid to mix it up with his narrow but loyal base of support, simply averts its gaze. …

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