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This Time, Pat Got it Right
By Doug Patton
February 25, 2002

Last Spring, I wrote a column criticizing remarks by Pat Robertson. Despite my past respect for - and association with - Dr. Robertson, I called for him to step down as the head of the Christian Coalition. The offending remarks at that time reflected Pat's contention that the United States should stay out of the internal affairs of China (in which he had financial investments) and refrain from criticizing that despotic regime's infamous one-child policy, which forces abortion.

"I don't agree with it," Robertson said then, "but at the same time, they've got 1.2 billion people, and they don't know what to do. If every family over there was allowed to have three or four children, the population would be completely unsustainable. I think that right now they're doing what they have to do. I don't agree with forced abortion, but I don't think the United States needs to interfere with what they're doing internally in this regard."

That was a reckless comment. I believed so then, and I believe so now.

Then, last September, shortly after the 11th, Robertson did it again. Actually, to be accurate, it was Jerry Falwell who opened his mouth and inserted his foot this time. It just happened to be on Pat Robertson's television program, "The 700 Club," that Falwell took a taste of his own wing tips. Jerry blamed the ACLU, homosexuals, feminists, People for the American Way and, of course, abortionists, for the attack on America. And Pat agreed with him.

I asked the question, what would Jesus be doing? My contention was that He would have been visiting the injured in the New York City hospitals and ministering to the heartsick families who had lost loved ones in the World Trade Center. He would not, I said, be sitting in a television studio pointing fingers of blame at elements of society with which He disagreed.

I thought then, and I continue to think now, that those two incidents were a low point in Pat Robertson's career. I cringed both times, and I took him to task for it.

But in all fairness, when he's right, he's right. And this time, Pat got it right.

Robertson was quoted last week as stating that Islam is a violent religion bent on world domination. He said that he disagreed with the assessment of "our esteemed president," who keeps repeating ad nauseum that it is "a peaceful religion."

Robertson went on to say that our immigration policy is so skewed toward the Middle East that we have created an entire network of terrorist cells within our own borders.

Right on, Pat! Put another way, well duh!

Of course, as with most of Robertson's utterances, this one has also sparked controversy. But this time, Pat is on very solid ground. As Franklin Graham said a few months ago, "Those weren't Methodists flying those planes into those buildings."

Of course, those comments were also thought to be reckless and insensitive. The truth has a way of riling people up.

I would take the remarks of Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham a step further. Our immigration policy is a joke. The first thing that should have happened after September 11th was that every undocumented alien - of any nationality, but especially Arabs - should have been rounded up and deported. This includes anyone here on an expired visa. The next step should have been to deny any new visas from any Arab country, with special emphasis on those known to harbor or support terrorists.

Pat Robertson's most recent remarks remind us that we have been lulled into a false sense of security by the success of our war in Afghanistan and by six months without another attack. But more important, they remind us that we are being brainwashed into believing the lie that Islam is willing to coexist with our way of life. They hate us. They mock us. They butcher our people whenever they can. All of them? Of course not, but when one of the tenets of your religion calls for the murder of people who don't believe as you do, how can we say that your religion is "peaceful?"

What part of "kill the infidels" do we not understand?