Another spot-on article by Billmon, this time analyzing the puzzling evil genius that is Pat Robertson. I've netflixed the Peckinpah movie, by the way.
Whiskey Bar: Bring Me the Head of Hugo Chavezread rest here
I was as entertained as anybody this week by Pat Robertson's remake of the Sam Peckinpah classic (this time with the president of Venezuela in the title role) and I certainly enjoyed watching the old devil wriggle on the hook of his own words, but I have to say I was amazed by all the media attention.
I mean, the fact that Pat Robertson babbled something completely insane (and dangerous) to his TV cult followers has a definite dog-bites-man quality to it. When Robertson says something sane, that will be big news. But I wouldn't keep a hole waiting on page one for that story.
For a taste of some of Robertson's more, ah, creative ideas, check out this Greg Palast story from 1999, recently reposted on Greg's web site.
Personally, I've known Pat was either a demented psychopath or a world-class con artist ever since he first emerged on the national scene back in the early 1980s. I remember seeing some old footage of Robertson hopping down the aisle of his “church” on one foot in some kind of a faith-healing trace, and thinking to myself: Nobody does something like that unless they're authentically ripped on the Holy Spirit, or they expect to make some nice coin out of it.
I always assumed it was the latter (a business associate who traveled with Robertson claims he never saw him reading the Bible -- just Investor's Business Daily and the Wall Street Journal.) But then I happened to catch Robertson on the tube giving a speech during the 1988 Republican convention, and I realized he was both a con man and a nut case -- with no clear dividing line between them.
Tags: Politics
