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.

Pat Robertson Says He Was Misinterpreted - Yahoo! News