Unsurprisingly enough, the leadership of God's Own Party has been distancing themselves as fast as it can from poor ol' Pat Robertson. As
James Wolcott observes:
Yesterday we saw the backfire over Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. It was rather comic how, even in the condemnation of Robertson's statement, the man behind the mouth was diminuitized as a sort of quaint old garden gnome whose name recognition was all out of proportion to his influence. The State Department called his murdermongering "inappropriate" (pretty rough language there, sailor), but described Robertson modestly as a "private citizen." He's rather more than that. A former Republican presidential candidate and former head of the Christian Coalition, he isn't just some guy popping off at the end of the salad bar.
Follow me to the flip for more evidence of this unholy dis and a suggestion as to how we might stand up for Pat's honor.
Even the GOP's wholly-owned media subsidiary, Fox News, has gotten into the act. From Wolcott again:
On Brit Hume's Special Report, the Fox News all-stars took turns deploring Robertson's remarks, but they treated him as a relic and spent force not to be taken seriously. Mort Kondracke rued that the unsophisticated people of Venezuela might think that Robertson was some major force[.]
They portray the good Reverend, essentially, as the crazy uncle hidden in Dr. Dobson's attic. This we must not allow.
My simple suggestion: In every letter to the editor, blog entry or public statement of any kind in which we refer to Reverend Pat, we should invariably call him "prominent Repubican Pat Robertson." PR squared, if you will. It should be a mantra for us, like "liberal media" and "tax-and-spend democrat" has been for them. Our goal should be that every time John and Jane Q. Voter thinks of Pat Robertson, they should associate him with the Republican Party. And every time they think of the Republican Party, they should also think, "That's the party in which Pat Robertson is prominent."
If God's Own can make false epithets like "liberal media" and "tax-and-spend Democrat" stick, surely we can do the same for the 100% accurate (not to mention cleverly alliterative) description of Pat Robertson as a prominent Republican.
And, call me crazy, but I think it's what Jesus would want us to do.