On the plus side: For once, he didn't blame something bad on teh gays.

Okay, joking aside: The man is pure evil. Many, many innocent people lost their lives because of a natural disaster. A just and righteous god would smite Robertson for trying to make christianist capital out of that.

So will Robertson blame Katrina's aftermath on our declaring independence from Britain? I guess it's worth it, to get GW Bush (instead of King George) off the hook.

tyrannogenius

Wow, I did not know Napoleon the third was emperor in 1804! Learn something new every day. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti#Haitian_Revolution).

Didn't he blame Katrina on teh Gay and general moral decay in NO? It is the height of religious fraud that he is any kind of pastor.

There really is no such thing as "too vile" for the religious right, is there?

I hope Republicans continue to appear on his show, so we can run ads focusing on their support of him.

"You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever."

What a beautiful phrase.

Gee, how come good Christians like Robertson haven't long since gotten the Haitians to renounce their deal with the Devil and become good Christians, if that's such a true story? What have they been doing for the last 200 years, abandoning all those poor souls instead of leading them to the Light? Shameful.

Maybe they should send Brit Hume down to help them figure it out?

I went straight from reading coverage of the earthquake to this. Truly horrible. What a country that tolerates someone like this, and I don't mean Haiti.

"True story?" The actual true story is far more interesting than this, even including Robertson's devil. He's right about one thing: Haiti has been shunned and victimized by the other nations of the world ever since, not for a devil deal but for the unpardonable crime of being an independent black nation that pulled off a successful revolution.

Is it a mess? Oh yes. Has all the meager progress made since the days of Papa and Baby Doc been wiped out? Oh yes. Is this something to gloat over, then exploit? Only if you're on the level of Pat Robertson. If there's a positive side to this bigotspeak, it just shows you the benefits of homeschooling in history.

"In the larger political context, it's worth remembering that Robertson remains a leading figure in the conservative movement and a prominent Republican voice, despite being insane."

No offense, but Robertson carries about as much political weight as Dan Quayle. Robertson is an idiot, who in my opinion has lost his mind, seems to rake in a lot of cash, but no one is Washington is taking his calls.

Wow, I did not know Napoleon the third was emperor in 1804! Learn something new every day. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti#Haitian_Revolution).

You really can't expect Robertson to get the past right. He can't figure out the present.

funny they are 80% Catholics...wonder which idea of a God they believe in?

No offense, but Robertson carries about as much political weight as Dan Quayle. Robertson is an idiot, who in my opinion has lost his mind, seems to rake in a lot of cash, but no one is Washington is taking his calls.

From your lips to God's ears...

(You know I really didn't to phrase my relief that way as a joke,..but since it was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this comment, I had to post it.

This is something I've never worked out. If one buys into the Christianist line, God controls everything. So God sends a huge earthquake that kills hundreds of thousands of the poorest and most wretched people on earth, and Robertson's best suggestion for them is to turn to the same God that just destroyed them?

I've just never been able to get my head around this kind of thinking. Probably never will.

funny they are 80% Catholics...wonder which idea of a God they believe in?

As any good born again Baptist will be happy to explain, Catholics are NOT Christians. They worship Saints (who are 'dead people'), they have idols, many of their rituals are evil etc etc etc.

Robertson remains a leading figure in the conservative movement and a prominent Republican voice, despite being insane.

You write that as though being insane were a disqualification rather than a prerequisite for membership in the Republican Party.

Ran the debugger on your copy Steve...

And at that point, Robertson smiled smugly and encouraged viewers to contribute to his international "charity," so he can help respond to the suffering.

Robertson's dogma has greatly perverted his self-perceived sense of faith! Too bad he appeals to the spiritually weak since they are so willing to serve as his minions of evil! -Kevo

The DR is prosperous? Maybe in the only area lying Pat has been to - the resorts - but taje a walk around the island, and it is little better than it's neighbor.

So the French, even among nutso conservatives, are good for something? Does racism trump all, and the even the despicable French are better than black folks? Better even than the children's children of those black folks who supposedly made deals with the Devil? Aren't lunatics supposed to get treatment?

So, Robertson is siding with the French Catholics on this one?

Those devil-worshipping Haitians could learn a thing or two from Robertson--he's got a whole army of mindless zombies following him and paying for whatever snake oil he happens to be selling.

And of course, we godless heathens in California are at "fault" for the San Andreas...

"And of course, we godless heathens in California are at "fault" for the San Andreas..."

MissMudd .... it's because of "Gay Marriage," you know. Didn't Robertson actually blame a California earthquake on Teh Gays?

If there is such a thing as hell, then Pat Robertson has a special place reserved. After all, doesn't the bible say something about those who use their power to lead men astray are do for some extraordinary hurt?

[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti...they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'Okay it's a deal.'

It is simply mind-boggling that an influential public figure in the United States in the 21st century is uttering superstitious drivel like this on television without shame. It's equally as stunning that there are millions of yokels who will line up to believe and defend lunacy like this. Certainly the shadow of the 14th century is a long one.

Haitians were slaves that threw off the yoke of French slavery. Robertson thinks it would have been better had that never happened? Or is as ignorant of history as he is of theology?

Here's another Pat Robertson gem: "Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."

Jambing a .38 into this guy's mouth and dry firing it a few times would not even come close to the justice this lunatic deserves (oops. just kidding--anne coulter humor).

Robertson is an idiot, who in my opinion has lost his mind, seems to rake in a lot of cash, but no one is Washington is taking his calls.

As long as he makes other Republicans like Huckabee and Palin look less insane by comparison, he's doing his part. Don't think for a second that envelope-pushing isn't a widely-understood practice.

I've been in the Dominican Republic and seen the poverty there. In spite of the clusters of resorts the poverty there rivals the poverty in Haiti.The health situation is so dire that my Doctor goes there every year for two weeks with a group of other medical professionals to dispense what medical care they can provide in a two week stay. They understand that after they leave even the most minimal medical supplies and treatments are impossibly expensive and out of the question for their patients.

More folks should know that Pat Robertson's father was one of the last Jim Crow Democrats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absalom_Willis_Robertson

This would be the same Pat Robertson who as a young Marine 2nd Leutenant had his dad, the Senator, pull strings so he could duck combat in Korea? Who instead of combat ended up as the "liquor supply officer", making weekly flights from Japan to Korea carring dispatches and bottles of booze?

Based on what I'm finding out about Haiti's population, over 95 percent of Haitians are affirmed Christians - mostly Catholic. To a Unitarian like myself, there's no difference between Protestant and Catholic: a follower of Christ is a Christian, period.

Congratulations, Mr. Robertson (I shall not call you Rev.). You just pissed on your fellow Christians. You must be... so thrilled.

Gosh, maybe if we hadn't kicked the British out we'd have a decent health care system today.

What the Hell is he talking about?

This was an earthquake dude, no god had anything to do with the shifting of the Earth's crustal boundaries.

In one fell swoop, Pat is trying to diminish the vastness of this human catastrophe.

What an absolute jerk.

Makes aetheism seem heavenly, don't it?

It is a little known fact in construction that you can substitute prayers for rebar in earthquake proof homes. Enough prayer done at the right time while the foundation is still setting can net you structural improvements able to withstand up to a richter level of 8, though these being Catholics, 7.2 is more likely the limit.

Pity-Pat Robertson is going to be very, very, very surprised when he shows up at Heaven's Gate and finds Jesus is a black man. He's going to be even more surprised when Jesus asks him what did Pat do for the least of this brothers? Pat's going to stammer and look sheepish and Jesus is going to say, "Not a damn thing m***a-f****r!"

Next stop, the really warm place.

So this religious fundamentalist extremist blames gays for the attacks on 9/11, instead of the religious fundamentalist extremists who perpetrated them.

And this God-fearing Christian blames the natural disaster Hurricane Katrina [an act of "God"] on gays instead of on nature ["God"] itself.

And now he blames Haiti's abject poverty on a pact with the devil, instead of on the horribly corrupt and greedy thugs who've been running the place.

That could only mean that Pat Robertson is also a corrupt and greedy thug.

As Margolies points out above - Robertson doesn't even have his history right. It wasn't Napoleon the Third, it was Napoleon Buonoparte(the First!) that the slaves rebelled against.

And how very very Christian of Robertson - Haiti is the only nation in the world born of a slave revolt. Does he feel that overthrowing slavemasters is only possible with apact with the devil?

"I've just never been able to get my head around this kind of thinking. Probably never will.
Posted by: Curmudgeon on January 13, 2010 at 3:19 PM | PERMALINK"

It's like Battered Wife Syndrome, maybe.

Seriously, though, I've read the bible. Including the old testament.

It's a story about an evil space monster who terrorizes Earth, basically.

"They were under the heal of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. "

Damn, that and the devil worship already commented on.

What an ignorant, evil little man Pat Robertson is.

If that prick, Robertson ain't careful, all those Haitians will pile tons of voodoo on him.

oh, and as to Haitians being Catholic and Catholicism being the whore of Babylon to the evangelicals... Not always. VA's smarmy Taliban McDonnell is Catholic too and the two get along just fine. But McDonnell is white, blue eyed and blond (if somewhat dishwater-blond) and Haitians aren't.

Thank God I'm an atheist. . .

No offense, but Robertson carries about as much political weight as Dan Quayle. Robertson is an idiot, who in my opinion has lost his mind, seems to rake in a lot of cash, but no one is Washington is taking his calls.

Unfortunately, they do take calls from Robertson and his Chritian Broadcasting Network. With the exception of McCain, all the GOP suspects (Palin, Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, Brownback, etc.) went on Robertson's show in the run-up to the election.

On our side, Hillary and Howard Dean (in 2006, when he was still DNC Chair) have both been on.

And Obama sat down for four interviews in 2008.

It sucks, but Robertson and his CBN are players in the DC beltway.

I'll skip commenting on the blatant racism, smug affirmation of slavery and general lack of any kind of fucking decency and point out that his arguments don't even stand up on their own twisted merits.

If he's taking a swipe at Catholicism, he might remember that the French he admires so much were mighty Catholic as well, which is, you know, why Haitians today are Catholic.

If he thinks the DR is still occupied by Spain, he might want to look that up.

If he thinks the DR doesn't suffer from its own desperate and widespread poverty, with all those American pedophile-catering "resorts" funneling major profits into a very few hands, many of them outside the DR, he might want to...

Oh, what's the use? I can't even get angry. It's so much easier to cry at the unspeakable multiple evils contained in his comment.

Make that "Christian", not "Chritian".

Although "Chritian", as in "cretin" may still be appropriate when discussing Robertson.

Actually Martinque and one other colony did not violently overthrow France and they are doing much better.

Basically the potential trouble of a successful slave revolt is what sealed Haiti's doom. Not only were other powers leery, the slaves themselves didn't know much about country building so there was a lack of expertise.

That said, I read an interesting story where the fighters who threw the British out of Aiden are lamenting it, regretting it and openly wishing the British were still in charge.

What, Robertson didn't blame Obama for the disaster? Or is "the devil" a Christian code word for "Obama?"

Hey, didn't Hugo Chavez call Obama "the devil" at the Copenhagen climate change conference recently?

Who are those fools who make fun of Pat when he says,

"[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti...they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'Okay it's a deal.'"

He happens to have the whole event on film, shot by Napoleon Whatever's kid. So cut out mocking him or you'll look silly.

Crankily yours,
The New York Crank

"the potential trouble of a successful slave revolt is what sealed Haiti's doom..."

Not so. It wasn't the POTENTIAL -- it was the real thing.

Toussaint-Louverture led the ONLY successful slave revolt in history. Nobody else ever succeeded -- not Spartacus, not Nat Turner nor Denmark Vessey.

Toussaint not only won, he laid the foundation for prosperity on Santo Domingo, e.g., a trade agreement with the new USA. The deal was negotiated by Alexander Hamilton and repudiated by Thomas Jefferson as soon as he became President: a successful slave revolt was not exactly popular in several of the ostensibly United States.

Napoleon negotiated a peace treaty with Toussaint, who agreed to withdraw from political life provided France kept its vow not to re-instate slavery. Napoleon double-crossed him, re-instating slavery as well as capturing and killing Toussaint.

God help Haiti -- dig deep.

I love how the Dominican Repulic is prosperous and healthy because it's "full of resorts, etc."

They've got a booming tourist industry. Limbaugh can go there on vacation and buy pina coladas, oxycontin, and little boys cheap so, they must be livin' in the light of the Lordah!

Funny...I thought that Haiti's biggest problem was its pervasive and insanely devout brand of Christianity. The kind that kills the human spirit by insisting that only God's grace, and not personal endeavor, will improve earthly conditions. The result is a populace largely devoid of education and innovation, and a nation without the infrastructure to sustain itself, especially in light of the fact that it seems to be ground zero for natural disasters.

I suspect a country full of true believers, meek and pliant, would ordinarily earn high praise from Our Lady of Virginia Beach, if only it didn't have such dark people in't.

And what really made Haiti what it is today is the enthusiastic support the U.S. for the Duvalier regimes between 1957 and 1986. Nice going!

Pat (Diamond Mine) Roberton is an evangelist, not a reverend, pastor, or any other religious credentials since 1987.

What he is is a salesman of some note. His net worth is quoted to be almost a billion, hence his ability to afford that experimental heart surgery.

"Only the prayers of thousands of believing people kept me on this earth," Robertson said in a statement.

Funny, I do believe it was health care and the combined savings of those same people...

So, ok. Pat Robertson is an asshole, etc. It's been said above by better men and women than I. My question: is this actually a story? Is there a legend that Toussaint sold his country to the devil to win? Of did Pat 'Mr. Betty Bowers' just somehow make this crap up out of whole cloth?

For the record, if Pat's God really just killed a couple of hundred thousand people and condemned millions more to a wretched existence in vengance for something their greatX10 grandparents did, then I would rather spend eternity suffering the fires of damnation than bow my head to such a vicious, vindictive, petty asshole.

That's "under the HEEL of the French". You really need to get a proofreader.

There actually was a Napoleon the Third, although I think that was probably a lucky guess on Pat's part. And farm subsidies that protect domestic prices for things like rice hurt Haitians as much as anything else, but that's beside the point, I suppose.

Pat Roberston is a wretch, the only reason media sources still carry his remarks is for the controversy and fury they stir up. Remember holocaust denier Ernst Zundel? Exhibit A. Nobody really believed anything he said beyond a few skinheads and neo-Nazis, but everybody sure liked to fantasize about him burning alive.

[corrected, thanks - mod.]

Pat Robertson a Christian? Who'd ever know that by what comes out of his mouth?

"There, but for the Grace of God, go I"

Maybe wretched Robertson meant, Napoleon the Pig from Animal Farm? N3 didn't take power in France until ca. 1850. What a wretched little turd Robertson is, like so many popular (!) right-wing figures.

"Is there a legend that Toussaint sold his country to the devil to win?"

Yes -- only not Toussaint. There was an early leader of their struggle as slaves to be free, who was known as the Book Man, because he could read. He is said to have led the slaves who were fighting for their freedom in a prayer for liberty.

Bearing in mind that the words of his prayer were written and hpassed down by those who killed the Book Man and those who fought for freedom with him, it is hard not to read what it actually says as a call for divine justice on those who kidnapped people from Africa and dragged them in chains to places like Haiti, where they would be worked to death.

No wonder that Robertson, son of a white supremacist Senator, would want to tell the story as Haiti selling itself to the devil for freedom.

http://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=Boukman

Huh. I thought Pat Robertson was dead. Guess I was only partly wrong. He's dead inside.

Good luck, Virginians. You made your bed and now you have to sleep in it.

(I heart aphorisms)

Sorry, Cal Gal; when I made my bed, Robertson wasn't in it. And, last I looked he still isn't. I don't see how you can blame the a-hole on all Virginians; it's not as if we elected him. Now, if you were to blame us for his best buddy, the Taliban Bob McDonnell...

Perhaps there's something wrong with me but I find that ascribing human causes to natural phenomena like earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc so implausible that I would call those who hold such beliefs delusional to the point of insanity.

Keith Olbermann nails it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PEaWUduCM

So asking for divine justice against those who would enslave other humans must be devil worship, but gloating that natural disasters "punishing" the formerly enslaved is being God's cheerleader. Because God loves white people, hates black people and loves slavery. Are there adjectives bad enough to describe this guy?

Here's an interesting story discussing how the reparations demanded by France -- er, God -- helped keep Haiti in poverty for 150 years.

BLAME THE VICTIM!!!

how is he able to quote the devil? was he there?