Fish+Barrel

What would we do without Pat Robertson? The guy's such an easy target, and he's always feeding us new material. Like today, he's now saying God gave Ariel Sharon a stroke as punishment for pulling out of Gaza. Really. You can't make up stuff like this.

Robertson's perhaps even more meanspirited and cruel than most fundies, if such a thing is possible, but his ideas place him firmly within the "mainstream" religious right. What really sets him apart is that he's quite open about how he feels. He's not polished, or media-friendly, or warm-n-fuzzy the way others like him try to be. He doesn't seem to buy into the common notion that there's some things you just don't say within earshot of the "liberal" media. He just doesn't care, and he comes right out and says what millions of nutty people like him are thinking. And always with the same calm, beatific smile on his face.

In the next couple of days we'll see the usual recriminations from more media-savvy right-wingers, people who often privately agreee with Pat but find his bluntness embarrassing. They'd have us think the problem is just that Pat's sometimes a little crazy, when the real problem is that the underlying idea is a lot crazy, and is what disgusts the world beyond the walls of their cozy little echo chamber. A terrible idea remains a terrible idea, no matter how many pollster-approved nuances you attach to it.

Interestingly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's answer to Pat Robertson, is saying much the same thing. Crazy religious fanatics are just so predictable.

These latest comments aren't likely to win Robertson any friends in Israel, which is likely to complicate his recently-announced plans to build an evangelical theme park near the Sea of Galilee. The article's not clear on whether it's supposed to be located on land taken from Syria in 1967, but I doubt Robertson would pass up the opportunity.