It was five years ago today that Jerry Falwell was interviewed by Pat Robertson on his 700 Club show and set the tone for Rovian strategy to come.
Even as the smoke was still rising from the WTC site, as bodies were still being found, as Le Monde proclaimed "Nous Sommes Tous Americains," as flags around the world flew at half staff. Even as NATO prepared to invoke Article 5 for the first time in history and the world stood with America.
Messages of solidarity and indignation came from Libya and Syria as well as from Germany and Israel; flowers and funeral wreaths piled up in front of American Embassies from London to Beijing; flags flew at half-staff across Europe; in Iran, a candlelight vigil expressed sympathy. "Any remnants of neutrality thinking, of our traditional balancing act, have gone out of the window now," a Swedish political scientist told Reuters. "There has not been the faintest shadow of doubt, not a trace of hesitation of where we stand, nowhere in Sweden."
On that day when it seemed all of America would unite behind a president whose election just nine months earlier had so divided the nation, Falwell fired the first shot in the campaign to use 9/11 to pummel the opposition into submission.
Sept. 13, 2001, is the day the goodwill began to die.
Falwell: "What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."
Robertson: "Well, Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror, we haven't begun to see what they can do to the major population."
Falwell: "The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I'll hear from them for this, but throwing God...successfully with the help of the federal court system...throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."
Robertson: "I totally concur, and the problem is we've adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government, and so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do, and the top people, of course, is the court system."
Falwell: "Pat, did you notice yesterday that the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, the People for the American Way, NOW, etc., were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress, as they went out on the steps and and called out to God in prayer and sang 'God bless America' and said, let the ACLU be hanged. In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time, calling on God."
The next day, the remarks are reported by the NY Times and the Washington Post.
Falwell was unrepentant, saying in an interview that he was "making a theological statement, not a legal statement."
"I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist," he said. But he said America's "secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture . . . the result is not good."
And Pat Robertson digs himself a deep hole:
Robertson releases a lengthy statement that reiterates Falwell's comments from "The 700 Club" -- although without naming people or organizations. The Associated Press reports that Robertson also issued a written statement saying, "In no way has any guest on my program suggested that anyone other than the Middle East terrorists were responsible for the tragic events that took place on Tuesday."
The issue festers over the weekend and by Monday it comes to a boil:
Falwell issues a second statement on his Web site entitled "Why I Said What I Said," in which he again accuses others of taking his comments out of context and misreporting them, claiming that he was "intending to speak to a Christian audience from a theological perspective about the need for national repentance." Falwell admits that he "should have mentioned the national sins without mentioning the organizations and persons by name," but then goes on to single out homosexuality as something "God has condemned" and which has resulted in God's "displeasure."
After five days of steadily increasing public criticism, Falwell issues a third statement apologizing for his remarks, saying, "I made a statement I should not have made and which I sincerely regret." He also said, "I obviously did not state my theological convictions very well and I stated them at a bad time." Falwell's previous statement of the day is removed from the front page of his Web site.
Pat Robertson issues a third statement, distancing himself and The 700 Club from Falwell's remarks. Robertson characterizes Falwell's remarks as "a political statement of blame directed at certain segments of the population that was severe and harsh in tone," and claims that the remarks "were not fully understood by the three hosts of The 700 Club who were watching Rev. Falwell on a monitor."
Falwell issues a statement claiming that his comments had been taken out of context and misreported. "I sincerely regret that comments I made during a long theological discussion on a Christian television program yesterday were taken out of their context and reported, and that my thoughts -- reduced to sound bites -- have detracted from the spirit of this day of mourning."