Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, like so many of you this morning, are likely hearing about the comments made by Pat Robertson yesterday. You heard the ones. The whole “if-Hugo-Chavez-thinks-the-US-is-out-to-kill-him-we-ought-to-just-make-it-happen” comment.
Your Maximum Leader heard about this and a few thoughts went through his head. The first was the typical, “Oh great. There he goes again saying something stupid.” But following very closely on the heels of that thought was the, “Why the hell does anyone care?” Really now. Pat Robertson has a TV program. Okay. Oh yeah, he ran for President in 1988 - twenty years ago. How exactly does that make him any different than the dozens of other talking-heads who have TV (or radio) shows and spout off idiocy every day?
Oh. Your Maximum Leader forgot. Pat Robertson is the voice of the religious right in America. Because you know if Pat Robertson says something the mindless masses of Christian Conservatives in America (all of whom, by the way, watch or Tivo the 700 Club every single day) all run out and immediately do whatever he commands.
Look Pat Robertson in many respects is no different than Cindy Sheehan. Only no one (outside of some commentators and bloggers) seems to be offended or shocked at anything “Mother Sheehan” says. Your Maximum Leader for one thinks that her demands to bring the boys back home (as well as her claims that the US military is doing more harm than good in the Middle East among other inane comments she’s made) are just as offensive to his senses as anything Robertson says. They are just as offensive because they are just ill-informed and ridiculous.
Excursus: Why the hell are all the news wires now buying into the “Mother Sheehan” thing? It seems like many news agencies are putting some reference to “Mother Sheehan” in all their dispatches. Why can’t they do the same for Pat Robertson? Why can’t they refer to him as “Shepard Robertson” or “Metatron Robertson?” But your Maximum Leader digresses…
Robertson as a right to say what he will. Regardless of how stupid or inflamatory it might be. The fact that he owns a TV station does help his ability to transmit that message. Cindy Sheehan, for example, has the right to say what she will. And although she doesn’t own a TV station, she seems to have no trouble getting the word out. Then there is the case of Michael Graham.
Michael Graham was, until recently, a talk show host on a DC area radio station. He said that Islam had become a terrorist organziation. For those comments he was fired by the owners of the radio station. It was his right to say what he did. And frankly it was the right of station management to terminate him for his comments. (Although one suspects he can file a wrongful termination suit which may or may not go anywhere.)
You ought to go and read James Joyner’s great post in which he covers lots both the Graham story and the Robertson story in one stroke. Like Joyner your Maximum Leader wonders when we will hear the outrage over Graham’s firing.
What amuses and saddens your Maximum Leader about all of these cases is the hysteria with which the Robertson or Graham stories are being reported. Compare this to the coverage of Cindy Sheehan - which is tolerant and sometimes sympathetic. All three of these characters are speaking in a fashion that could be described as inflamatory or offensive. Objectively one would think that all three would be covered in the same fashion. But that is not the case. One would hope that one day we might see some more objective reporting, or at least a little less breathless surprise when someone like Pa Robertson says something wacky.
Carry on.
