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Pat Robertson: Ludicrous, maybe, but not funny

Friday, January 12 2007 @ 12:34 PM CST

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Melanie Howard

It’s almost too easy these days to make fun of Pat Robertson, who has, unsuccessfully, called down Biblical disaster on individuals as diverse as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the population of Dover, Pa., whose School Board dared to support the teaching of evolution.


It’s particularly tempting for me, because I’m both an Episcopalian and a feminist. According to Pat, we Episcopalians, along with Methodists and Presbyterians, harbor the spirit of the anti-Christ. (All I can tell you, having sat through innumerable Episcopal sermons, is that if this is all the excitement Satan can conjure up we have nothing to fear, including insomnia. And as for Pat’s claim that feminism leads women to kill their children and leave their husbands, well, let’s just say that if it were true, I’d do a lot less laundry.)

As if his random ramblings weren’t enough fun, every January Pat delivers his annual prophesy — dictated directly from the lips of the Almighty. Apparently God, like the rest of us, enjoys marking New Year’s with in and out lists and resolutions. In 2004, He declared to Pat that George Bush was “In” and John Kerry “Out,” although his poll numbers forecasting a landslide were way off. In 2006, he resolved to strike the Pacific Northwest with a tsunami, but got busy and could only flood parts of New England. You know how it is. You plan to clean out the garage, but end up just rearranging the kitchen junk drawer.

This year, no longer content with politics and the weather, Pat went all out. He predicted a terrorist attack claiming millions of American lives. God didn’t specifically say “nuclear” or even “nucular,” but apparently after years of cozy familiarity with the Deity, Pat is allowed to infer such details.

Why am I not laughing?

Let me tell you my dirty little secret. When my children were babies, my husband and I didn’t get out much, so we’d order in Thai food and watch old TV shows on cable. One of our favorites was “Hawaii 5-0,” which was inexplicably followed by Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. At that point we’d always flick off the TV. Except that one night we didn’t. And we were hooked.

We technically live in Robertson’s native Virginia, but there’s not much Bible belt left inside the Beltway. Pat’s smarmy delivery, his wacky condemnations, his fun tours of Branson, Mo., (you haven’t lived till you’ve seen him in a suit, eating ice cream on a kiddy ride) and exposes of liberal conspiracies were as strange to us as the “X-Files” and funnier than “Saturday Night Live.”

And then there were the miracles. Every week, the lame walked and the damned were saved, all thanks to Pat, and at the end of each moving story were opportunities to send money to Pat so you too could be saved!

At first, I considered this no more harmful than, say, QVC offering hope at a price in the form of weird tummy-toning and thigh-thinning devices.

But I came to realize that fleecing the flabby, while hardly admirable, is not the same as holding out the promise of salvation to the desperate and delusional; people with dying children, lifetime addictions and incurable illnesses. I had to stop watching.

Which brings me to this year’s prediction; is there anything better than the threat of a fiery death at the hands of infidel terrorists to really bring home the bacon from folks seeking to avert God’s wrath or buy entry to heaven if it does strike? The fact is, I can mock this despicable gnome all I want, but thousands will believe — and pay.

So, Pat, here’s my New Year’s prayer. Unlike you, I’m not the smiting type of Christian; all I ask is that if God finally does have a conversation with you about your dealings here on Earth, I get to listen in. Now that will be good entertainment.

Melanie Howard is a freelance writer living in Virginia and a National Magazine Award finalist published in Glamour, SELF, CHILD, Seventeen, Family Circle and other national magazines.

http://www.examiner.com

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