Mike the Usurper wrote:

"There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time."

How about Chavez being the elected president of Venezuela Pat? How about we tried to run a military coup on the guy and failed? How about you go back to doing what you know, which is bilking senior citizens out of their social security checks.

Dude, Pat Robertson doesn't read this - so there's like, no reason to address something to him.

Also, who cares about Pat Robertson. What he said though is still right, we should kill this communist pig.

Decius wrote:
Pat Robertson wrote:

"There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time."

Why is this acceptable in our society? Robertson clearly said assasinate him. He is on the spot. This happens with public figures all the time. If you have political enemies they will take any unreasonable thing that you say and nail you to the wall on it in an attempt to discredit you wholesale. Its part of how politics works.

The appropriate thing to do, it seems, would be to take responsibility for what was said, acknowledge that it was wrong, and apologize. People need to understand the humanity and fallibility of other people. If they did, these kinds of political attacks would be less effective. Yeah, he fucked up, he was wrong, so what?

Instead, Robertson says "I didn't mean what I clearly meant, I meant something different." This is the standard response. To Spin. And people buy it. This sort of spin war happens because its effective. All of the people on Robertson's side of the isle who want to beleive that Robertson is infallible will grab this hook and hold onto it. Apparently this kind of spin is more effective then simple honesty even in a cut and dry case such as this. Its perspective jousting in the public sphere, similar to what goes on in a courtroom.

Why is this acceptable? Are people really so stupid that they cannot see through this despite having heard it over and over again from so many different political figures? Why won't people think critically about their favorite leaders? Why can't they separate their beleifs from the people who represent them?

U: It gets better: Aparrently after going on his TV show and saying he didn't call for assasination and its all the AP's fault, he issued a statement to the press saying that he did call for assasination and apologizing. There is absolutely no need for consistency at all, apparently. On TV, his viewers can't rewind and see what he really said, so unless they actually read the news, they won't know what happened.

Here's my problem or issue with all this.

(1) Pat Robertson is a religious leader and he shouldn't be calling for anyone to be killed - it's no different than Muslim clerics calling for Jihad. At least, America is responding (both conservative and liberal) against his words - it'd be nice to see muslim leaders do the same thing.

(2) However, I totally agree with Pat Roberstson. Chavez should have his freaking head blown off in front of his wife and children. I have too many friends from Venezuela - and they all say the same thing - this dude is Castro with oil and power. We should just take the bastard out now - and yes, kill him. Then air drop his corpose on Castro's house.

(1) Pat Robertson is a religious leader and he shouldn't be calling for anyone to be killed - it's no different than Muslim clerics calling for Jihad.

While true, I must admit that don't take Pat Robertson's fatwa as seriously as I take those of the Islamists. I don't actually think the US Government or anyone in the US is going to act on his threat. It may be an inappropriate thing to say, but its quite a different matter when you are regularly calling for people to die and you've got an army of people who will carry out your wishes.

Decius wrote:

(1) Pat Robertson is a religious leader and he shouldn't be calling for anyone to be killed - it's no different than Muslim clerics calling for Jihad.

While true, I must admit that don't take Pat Robertson's fatwa as seriously as I take those of the Islamists. I don't actually think the US Government or anyone in the US is going to act on his threat. It may be an inappropriate thing to say, but its quite a different matter when you are regularly calling for people to die and you've got an army of people who will carry out your wishes.

Naa... it's the same thing. Religious leader calling for someone's death. That's bad. Even Muqtada Al Sadr isn't doing that anymore.