Televangelist Pat Robertson wants to smite Hugo Chavez.
On Monday’s “700 Club” TV show, Robertson said the United States should assassinate the Venezuelan president. “We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,” Robertson said. The comment not only ignored one of the Ten Commandments, it gives Chavez another weapon in his rhetorical war with the U.S., which relies heavily on Venezuela for oil.
Robertson seems to have a thing about death. At times he has implied his followers should pray for U.S. Supreme Court justices to die, said the State Department should be hit by a “small nuke,” and wrongly claimed the Koran incites Muslims to kill people of other faiths. While disturbing, such remarks had little real-life impact.
This time could be different. Venezuela is the third-largest U.S. oil supplier, so it is crucial to our economy. Chavez, an avowed fan of Fidel Castro, has said he wants Venezuela to sell more oil to China and less to the United States. The Bush administration’s clumsy backing of a 2002 anti-Chavez coup, which unraveled, strengthened his political grip. Chavez has since ginned up support by claiming the United States is trying to kill him. The U.S. government insists that’s not true. Now Robertson has handed Chavez another excuse to loosen Venezuela’s fraying U.S. ties. The Bush administration’s reaction (“We do not share his views”) was far too tepid.
“A public effort to whack him, offered from the right-wing Christian establishment so closely aligned with President Bush, is just what Chavez needs to keep his approval ratings soaring as high as the price of the Venezuelan oil he controls,” warned Time magazine columnist Tim Padgett.
Sadly, Robertson also may have made it harder for Venezuelans to eventually replace Chavez with a better, more sensible leader – using ballots, not bullets.
