Pat Robertson is a big dope--Part 1

For those of you who might have missed it, this past Sunday Pat Robertson was a guest on ABC's "This Week." You can read the entire transcript of the interview at Robertson's website, or you can check out parts of the interview at Media Matters (here and here, with video links), the New York Daily News, and plenty of locations in the blogosphere. You can see a video of the entire interview here.

I was not sure before today that anyone besides Ann Coultergeist could say so many insane and inflammatory things in a 10-minute interview, but Robertson removed my doubt.

The first part of the interview addressed the current winger obsession with the federal judiciary.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But, sir, you have described this in pretty, this whole battle is pretty apocalyptic terms. You've said that Liberals are engaged in an all-out assault on Christianity, that Democrats will appoint judges who don't share our Christian values and will dismantle Christian culture, and that the out-of-control judiciary--and this was in your last book Courting Disaster--is the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War?

PAT ROBERTSON: George, I really believe that. I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together. There is an assault on marriage. There's an assault on human sexuality, as Judge Scalia said, they've taken sides in the culture war and on top of that if we have a democracy, the democratic processes should be that we can elect representatives who will share our point of view and vote those things into law.

(emphasis added). This is shockingly insane stuff. Seriously. Let's just say for the moment that there is an "out-of-control judiciary." The judiciary is the greatest threat America has faced, ever? Greater than Nazi Germany? Greater than a Civil War which divided this nation and produced more deaths than all other American wars through Afghanistan combined? And although it is not mentioned, Robertson obviously feels that the judiciary is a greater threat than those godless commies that for almost 50 years could have blown us up with nuclear weapons. Not only that, but, according to Robertson, the judiciary is a bigger danger to us than was Saddam Hussein [oh, wait...he might be right about that :-) ]. And the judiciary is a greater threat than al Qaeda?

Stephanopoulos seemed a bit incredulous over this, so he followed up:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS: But, sir, let me just stop you there. How can you say that these judges are a more serious threat than Islamic terrorists who slammed into the World Trade Center?

PAT ROBERTSON: It depends on how you look at culture. If you look over the course of a hundred years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings. I think we're going to control al Qaeda. I think we're going to get Osama bin Laden. We won in Afghanistan. We won in Iraq, and we can contain that. But if there's an erosion at home, you know, Thomas Jefferson warned about a tyranny of an oligarchy and if we surrender our democracy to the tyranny of an oligarchy, we've made a terrible mistake.

(emphasis added). Un-freaking-believable. These comments still have me so stunned, I cannot produce a reply of my own. However, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) came up with a rather good response, and he put it in a letter to Robertson dated May 3, 2005:

It was shocking to hear your cavalier dismissal of the atrocious 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by describing them as “a few bearded terrorists who fly planes into buildings.”

It is hard to believe that an American could so coldly describe the murder of more than 3,000 human beings, the demolition of facilities thought of as indestructible and the crushing psychological damage to our national confidence.

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The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight “a few bearded terrorists” have taken the lives of over 1,500 American soldiers and seriously wounded thousands more.

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To suggest that members of the federal judiciary are somehow in the same class as “a few bearded terrorists” is an assault on the men and women on the federal bench who safeguard our rights under the Constitution everyday.

Not until I heard what you had said would I have ever believed a man of such deep faith could single out our courts, and not terrorists, as America’s Public Enemy Number One. Every family who has lost loved ones at the hands of terrorists deserves nothing less that a full and forthright apology from you.

Right on, Senator.