The New York Times has a story today, devastating in its understatement, about reaction to Pat Robertson’s internationally televised call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela. The story is devastating, not so much for Pat Robertson who is being denounced worldwide anyway — but for the wider Christian Right, who are unable to distance themselves from Robertson’s demagogic call for a domestic and international crime. This could be a bellwether moment in the fortunes of the Christian Right if domestic and international interest in the ideas and influence of Robertson and his political, religious and broadcasting empire can be sustained for a little longer than the emotional bandwidth of the current outrage.

But let’s begin with Day Two of the assassination story and then broaden it a little.  

Bernardo Álvarez, the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington, said: “Mr. Robertson has been one of the president’s staunchest allies. His statement demands the strongest condemnation by the White House.” That hasn’t happened of course. Although, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the state department spokesman distanced themselves from Robertson’s comments at their daily news briefings. The official line is a disingenuous claim that he is just one private citizen. The State Department called Robertson’s remarks “inappropriate” but would not otherwise condemn them. Still, thats fairly strong stuff considering that Pat Robertson is one of the most prominent leaders of the Republican Party and one of the top televangelists in the world.  Anyway, lost amidst the tumult is the truly devastating point. Veteran religion reporter Laurie Goodstein had a hard time finding prominent conservative Christian leaders to comment.

“Some of Mr. Robertson’s allies distanced themselves from his comments” Goodstein wrote. “The Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, released a statement saying Mr. Robertson should “immediately apologize, retract his statement and clarify what the Bible and Christianity teaches about the permissibility of taking human life outside of law.”

(The National Clergy Council is a small outfit, and Schenk is best known for his militant antiabortion activism.)

The Rev. Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals told the Times that he and ‘most evangelical leaders’ would disassociate themselves from such ‘unfortunate and particularly irresponsible’ comments….”

“But other conservative Christian organizations remained silent, with leaders at the Traditional Values Coalition, the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition saying they were too busy to comment.”

“Mr. Robertson has a history of getting attention for inflammatory remarks,” Goodstein continued, “In May he said the threat to the United States from activist judges was “probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.” In 1998, he warned that hurricanes and other natural disasters would sweep down on Orlando, Fla., because gay men and lesbians were flocking to Disney World on special “gay days.” And he has often denounced the United Nations as a first step toward a dangerous “one world government.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State noted that Robertson has been urging his ‘700 Club’ audience to pray for more vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court so that current justices can be replaced by President Bush with ‘righteous’ judges:  “During the same Aug. 22 broadcast where Robertson called for the assassination of Chavez, Robertson prayed that God ‘take control of the court, that you would take control of the confirmation process for Judge Roberts, that you bring about other vacancies on the court….’.

While Robertson’s reckless comments, and the international outrage they have provoked may turn him into a pariah, Robertson’s politics run far deeper than his high profile outrageous public statements. His 1989 book The New World Order is a hair raising testament to the depth and breadth of his ideology and why he is a dangerous and destablizing influence in American constitutional democracy. This book was sent to every new member of Robertson’s Christian Coalition for the first several years of it’s existence and it was on the New York Times on the best seller list. Millions of copies were and undoubtedly still are, in circulation. The New World Order is was one of the most influential books in the history of the Christian Right.

I wrote a great deal about this book and its significance in Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. Here is a short excerpt:

“Robertson made it clear in The New World Order that anyone who is not Christian or Jewish is not fit to hold public office. he specifically names Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, atheists and ‘new age’ adherents. He details his wistfulness for the colonial theocracies [of early America] where, he claims ‘almost all were committed to the biblical worldview,’ and that ‘They all shared the same language traditions, and political concepts about the nature of man and the will of God.’ This nostalgia for a cultural homogeneity which never was tells us much about Robertson’s contemporary bigotry and political ideals. He longs for the time ‘when this country started,’ when voting rights were restricted to ‘property owners’ because ‘People had to have a stake in society, before they were allowed to determine its laws.’ His implicit endorsement of these policies suggests that he too believes that only people who own property have a stake in society, and thus would deny voting rights to renters and tenants of public housing, along with the religiously incorrect, if he and his movement ever gain sufficient political power.”

Due to the current focus on the future of the Supreme Court, much is being written and said about consevative notions of “original intent,” and the interpretation of the Constitution. The Christian Right makes noises about this, but what when you hear phrases like “biblical worldview,” “biblical principles” and “biblical law,” the vision for society is mostly preconstitutional. The nostalgia for the colonial era when conservative Christian minorities held sway; when voting rights were determined on the basis of race, religion, gender, and property ownership — says much about Robertson and other leaders of the Christian Right. It is this era that the framers of the Constitution sought to forever put to an end in founding and defining a new nation. Although the Constitution as written did not perfect the equality of citizens, it took some bold first steps, and set the stage for every advance we have made in these areas since.  

Fastforwarding back to the present, as we look at the views of Pat Robertson, I want to underscore again, the news is not that Pat Robertson makes extreme or nutty sounding statements once in awhile. It is the profound religious supremacism, and the twisted historical revisionism, and the anti-constitutional political agenda that marks Pat Robertson’s career in public life; views that are imbued in all of the institutions under his control and influence to varying degrees. The current bruhaha may provide an opening to talk about the depth and breadth of Pat Robertson’s views and their influence in society.

Finally, lets hear the devastating silence of fellow leaders of the Christian Right and the entire leadership of the Republican Party in response to Robertson’s latest outrage. Ths silence underscores just how important Pat Robertson is in the Christian Right and in GOP. Any examination of Pat Robertson’s views beyond the quote du jour, will be a disaster for them.

And they all know it.