Pat Robertson Had Quite a Show Today

There was so much Pat Robertson crazy on today's broadcast of The 700 Club, I don't even know where to begin.  At the start of the show, I guess.

1. The opening news story: the United Nations Human Rights Council is considering referring Kim Jong-un and other North Korean officials to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Robertson follows up the story:

“Why do we have this?  Keep in mind the policy decisions of the United States have enormous consequences and they last for decades.  We had the opportunity—and I was in the Marine Corps in Korea, I know whereof I speak—we had the opportunity in that peninsula to close it off and win a military victory.  General MacArthur was going on the way to the Yalu River, he was going to set up a defense line across that boundary, and then he was going to mop up what was there, and we would have installed a democratic government in Korea.  Instead of that, the politicians were scared of what the Russians might think or the Chinese might think, and they took MacArthur home in seeming disgrace, he was cashiered by Truman. 

“And we made a line on the 38th Parallel, and we allowed Kim's grandfather…to set up a dictatorship, and have had that country on the watch list.  Now they have developed nuclear weapons, who knows if they have chemical weapons, and they have tormented their people.  And at the same time we send delegations over there to make peace with them—there's no peace with a group like that.  They should be arrested and executed…”

In actuality, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was relieved of his command after his efforts to push the war up to the Yalu River resulted in China's joining the war on the North Korean side and flooding the Korean peninsula with 180,000 troops—despite having assured President Truman that China would not do so, and severely underestimating how many Chinese troops could cross the Yalu into North Korea if they did.  The unexpected Chinese offensive severely drove back United Nations forces; for two months, Seoul was under North Korean control.  Pat Robertson's "scared politicians"were the Truman Administration with their order to establish a cease-fire, an order which MacArthur directly contravened—a clear act of insubordination warranting his removal.

At least that's what the history books say. But Pat knows whereof he speaks, as he was in Korea—in the rear echelon, to be exact, where his father, a U.S. Senator, secured him a cushy position as a "liquor officer" responsible for maintaining the soldiers' supplies of alcohol. (Actually, Pat's father wanted him kept in Japan and out of Korea entirely.)  Pat calls himself a combat Marine, but he never saw combat or came anywhere near it.


2.  A former Planned Parenthood nurse (who admits she wasn't really pro-choice to begin with) is calling the organization "a money-grubbing, evil" place because some staffers liked to chant "Abortion all the time!" (Also, receptionists got yelled at if they let the phone ring more than three times.  Evil!)  Well, Pat Robertson needs only the barest of excuses to go off on Planned Parenthood, and here it is:

CBN Prayer Counselors Are Available to Save You from Psychics, Planned Parenthood, Satanism—Wait, Back Up

(This aired on the April 15, 1997 broadcast of The 700 Club, but it's the kind of promotional spot that could have been produced months or years before and brought out every so often.)

The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) operates a bank of prayer counselors who are available 24/7 for adherents and 700 Club viewers who are seeking support and guidance in times of crisis…and great, I'm already writing a press release for them.  (CBN is Pat Robertson's media operation, of which The 700 Club is its flagship program.)  Anyway, you get the idea: anyone can call in to talk to a CBN prayer counselor about whatever, and I understand that they usually take the opportunity to ask for your name and address so they can add you to their mailing list and start sending you fundraising letters.  Win-win!

But this video spot was produced not so much to inform viewers that there are prayer counselors who are just waiting for your call, but to remind viewers of the kind of thing The 700 Club does with the money you give them, and if you're not a member of The 700 Club, won't you join today?  Because ultimately, all of these promotional spots are about getting people to give them money.

Of course, not all of them mention Planned Parenthood in the same breath as Satanism:

“What if the CBN counseling center wasn't here?  What are the alternatives for those desperately seeking answers?  Psychic hotlines…New Age gurus…crystal balls and tarot cards…Planned Parenthood…meditation…even Satanism.  People are searching now more than ever, and they risk falling into the clutches of the occult.”

There is actually a not-inconsiderable strain of "Planned Parenthood is occultist" thinking running through Christian fundamentalism that is little more than a Google search away.  Accusations that Margaret Sanger believed in the occult (and of course if Sanger believed something, then it necessarily infests all of Planned Parenthood, decades after her death); the purported historical roots of abortion in witchcraft and paganism; "this abortion clinic I know is totally occultist, you guys!"  It's like they think Citizen Ruth was a documentary, and all us pro-choicers are lesbians who pray to the moon.

Now, for all I've seen of Pat Robertson, I've never heard him say anything about Planned Parenthood being occultist, and you'd think that if he did believe that, he'd trot that out every chance he got.  (Instead, he usually pushes the tired "Margaret Sanger favored eugenics just like the Nazis" argument, which is an oversimplification of the facts.)  So I won't say that Pat believes this "Planned Parenthood is occultist" jazz.  But it looks like someone at CBN did.