Beitzel: Robertson weighs in on Haiti

When you look at the Haitian suffering, you might ask, “How could God allow this to happen?”… When you look at the Haitian suffering, you might ask, “How could God allow this to happen?” God didn’t allow it to happen. God caused it to happen. The earthquake is just His latest blight on those cursed pagans.

At least that’s the explanation if you are televangelist Marion Robertson. It’s Pat!’

During an episode of “The 700 Club” on his Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson was a-pontificatin’ and said God punished Haiti because of a centuries-old “pact with the devil.”

He said this is a “curse” that also explains Haiti’s enduring poverty. Robertson’s net worth is estimated at somewhere between $200 million and $1 billion. Even the shallow end is pretty baller. Break some bread, Pat.

He has since complained that his words were taken out of context — in fairness, the show was displaying a disaster relief donations phone number — so here is the extended version of his statement: “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, you know, Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. So the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ Then, they kicked out the French. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

Napoleon and whatever, huh? Good to see Robertson is a history buff. It must serve him well in comprehending the layered historical significance of the Bible.

Also, at the risk of nitpickery, the devil didn’t say, “OK, let’s make a deal,” in the 1790s. “OK” wasn’t invented until the late 1830s. It was an abbreviation for the satirical phrase “Oll korrect.” Funny that Robertson would use this twisted mockery of truth in his own claims.

As for “Let’s make a deal,” I’m not Daniel Webster, but Lucifer’s vocabulary is probably closer to Cicero than Howie Mandel.

But I get the point. Robertson didn’t completely fabricate this story. It is folklore.

Yet, he’s accepting this myth as truth and propagating it on national television. What’s worse is that he makes a killing doing it.

He founded the Christian Coalition of America, the Christian Broadcasting Network and the popular broadcast “The 700 Club,” which garners about 900,000 viewers daily, according to Media Matters.

Robertson is like a theological mob boss extorting chumps for their money in exchange for “protection.” A frightened flock pays him for security in the afterlife. His wild jeremiads also make them pay for protection on Earth.

Robertson and other hoods, like Jack van Impe, shake down the masses by claiming divine insight.

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Robertson implied that it was connected to legalized abortion. He did so by referencing Leviticus.

Hopefully, that book’s section on animal sacrifice came in handy when his $520,000 thoroughbred named Mr. Pat failed to run in the Kentucky Derby.

So Robertson believes a holy wrath connects the destruction in Haiti and New Orleans. They have something else in common: a lot of black people.

Robertson, a champion homophobe, is no stranger to hating people different than he is.

According to the BBC, the Bank of Scotland pulled out of a joint business venture with Robertson after he called Scotland “a dark land overrun by homosexuals.”

His nickname is Pat, so I guess that makes him an authority.

He also wrote a book titled “New World Order,” in which he vomited a host of outrageous theories, some of which invoked a global Jewish conspiracy.

In 1976, he even predicted that the world would end in 1982. He’s a quack, a false prophet who has duped millions of well-intentioned patsies into misplacing their devotion. His scheme is the Golden Fleece.

He ran for president in 1988 because he said God told him to do it. In his campaign, he said he served combat duty in the Korean War, but a fellow Marine said he just served alcohol. Surely, it was Communion.

The bigger deal is that he ran for president after he herded 3 million sheep into supporting his bid. Yet, if he knew what God wanted, if God favored this gross shepherd, why didn’t God kill his opponents?

Political assassination is fine by Him. After all, Robertson suggested assassinating Hugo Chavez.

He said, “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.”

So that’s what Jesus would do. If Yahweh won’t strike down the wicked, the righteous on Earth apparently have a free pass as long as it saves money.

For a refresher, it’s legitimate to kill a Venezuelan and so long as we’re to interpret Leviticus literally, it’s required to kill homosexuals — R.I.P. Scotland. Jews control the world.

We haven’t even gotten to Robertson’s thoughts on Marxism and the Illuminati, and he has millions of followers.

Some are bigoted. Some are ignorant. Despite Matthew 7:1, they judge others because it saves them from introspection. If a tragedy were to befall Robertson, it would not be punishment, but rather a Job-like test of his sterling faith.

Yet, many of his followers are most likely scared and just hedging their bets.

Robertson is the crooked bookie willing to bilk them. The suffering in Haiti is a tragedy. Robertson says as much himself, but it’s also a lucrative opportunity for him to sell insurance. Ain’t no valley low enough.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the population in Haiti was a little more than 9 million people. The Telegraph reports that the death toll from the earthquake might reach 200,000 — that’s about 2 percent of its population.

Maybe 2 percent doesn’t sound like much, so let’s go America all over you. If a disaster killed 2 percent of the United States’ population, it would be about 6 million people, or, as a marionette Kim Jong-Il would say, “9/11 times 2,000.”

Sept. 11 was the worst catastrophe in modern U.S. history, and Robertson didn’t miss a cheat.

On “The 700 Club,” two days after the attacks, fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell said, “I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians … the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

Robertson said, “I totally concur.”

I imagine it was a fundraising boon. He wouldn’t continue saying these things if it wasn’t. Maybe he’s not a racist. He’s just a perverted old goblin.

There is no more hateful person who wears a bigger smile. But that doesn’t mean I expect God to smite him.

E-mail Dave at drb34@pitt.edu, and visit redcross.org if you’d like to donate to the Haiti relief effort.