Robertson "apologizes" for advocating Chavez assassination

One of the more depressing rituals of present-day politics is the phony, sneering, non-apology apology.

The most common form is probably the one that says, "I apologize if anyone felt offended by my comment that all Methodists smell like donkeys."

Apologizing for someone else's feelings isn't an apology, it's a sneer.

Pat Robertson, the Christian Right leader who encourages Christian terrorism by his violent comments, has posted another variant of the non-apology apology on his Web site:

Pat Robertson Clarifies [sic] His Statement Regarding Hugo Chavez CBN.com 08/24/05

This one includes a quotable paragraph, which our neutered "press corps" is already picking up faithfully, that actually does sound like a straight-out apology:

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.

But then radical cleric Robertson goes on at some length to give a litany of inflammatory accusations against the Venezuelan leader.


He then writes:

We are in the midst of a war that is draining vast amounts of our treasure and is costing the blood of our armed forces. I am a person who believes in peace, but not peace at any price. However, I said before the war in Iraq began that the wisest course would be to wage war against Saddam Hussein, not the whole nation of Iraq. When faced with the threat of a comparable dictator in our own hemisphere, would it not be wiser to wage war against one person rather than finding ourselves down the road locked in another bitter struggle with a whole nation?

The brilliant Protestant theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lived under the hellish conditions of Nazi Germany, is reported to have said:

"If I see a madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders, then I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver."

On the strength of this reasoning, Bonhoeffer decided to lend his support to those in Germany who had joined together in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned
and killed by the Nazis, but his example deserves our respect and consideration today.

So, apparently Robertson is only "apologizing" for speaking "in frustration," since he uses the same statement to elaborate the case for killing the Venezuelan president.

Maybe this AP article gives us another clue about what sleazy double-talk this all is: Robertson Apologizes for Chavez Remark Yahoo! News 08/24/05

On Wednesday, he initially denied having called for Chavez to be killed and said The Associated Press had misinterpreted his remarks.

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out'," Robertson said on his show. "'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping."

He later issued the apology on his Web site.

Yeah, Robertson "apologized."