The Post editorial leads:
We won’t even pretend to have given television evangelist Pat Robertson's latest obnoxious utterance much thought, considering his long history of pious bloviations that have made him come across to most Americans as, well, witless. Were it not for the widespread attention being given in Latin America to Mr. Robertson's call on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, we would have preferred to allow the Christian Coalition's founder to continue his slide from America's mainstream into the obscurity he has so richly earned. But his latest bit of foolery is worth a comment or two -- if for no other reason than Mr. Robertson, in an act of stupidity only he could outdo, has handed Fidel Castro's acolyte a propaganda gift of immeasurable value.
Mr. Chavez, who, like Mr. Robertson, is infatuated with the absurd, fancies that the United States is out to kill him. It so happens that Mr. Chavez, when not meddling in the affairs of his neighbors and spawning anti-democratic movements, seems to enjoy portraying himself as a target of U.S. assassins -- a charge that he makes without evidence and that has been strongly denied by the Bush administration.
The second paragraph here is truly spectacular. In the same breath, the Post condemns Chávez for making claims of an assassination attempt without any evidence, and then repeats the same tired old charge that the Bush administration and State department have repeated again and again, without any evidence.
But time and time again, the State and Defense departments, and other Bush administration officials, have trotted out this old slander, that Chávez is arming the FARC, that Chávez is harboring Islamic terrorists, that Chávez is behind everything that happens in Bolivia. Every time a journalist has demanded that some actual evidence or documentation actually be produced, the subject is quickly changed or some vague, nonspecific answer is produced. But the Post editorial board happily parrots them, using Robinson’s comments as simply another excuse to attack the Venezuelan president with much of the same language that it and other editorial boards in the commercial media employed to prepare the U.S. public for the invasion of Iraq. (For instance, lamenting the prisoner abuse scandal because it makes “success more difficult in Iraq.”)
The Post editorial concludes:
The White House, embarrassed by Mr. Robertson yet again but too afraid to mix it up with his narrow but loyal base of support, simply averts its gaze. For all that, Mr. Chavez owes Mr. Robertson a thank-you note.
What was so reprehensible about Robertson’s comments, then, was not their imperialistic, anti-democratic spirit, but the fact that they ultimately hurt the United States’ interests in its propaganda war with Venezuela.
Democratic hawks, who gain political advantage by sounding the drums for more war and attacking Republicans for not fighting hard enough in Iraq, can now add Venezuela to their political arsenal. These “liberals” just need to hope that no more right-wing whack jobs like Robertson speak outside the script on this, or their game will be up.
