Rogue Slayer Law Student Lawyer with Snark Movie Fan

Poor Pat Robertson's been misunderstood once more. When he spoke of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and said that US Special Forces "should take him out," he meant they should kidnap him or something nice and neat and nonlethal like that. Of course that would still be a violation of Venezualan sovereignty, but hey - it's not murder. Because he of course would never condone such a thing.

What he said on his "700 Club" tv show was this:

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another 200 billion dollar war to get rid of one strong-armed dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

"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."

Hmm, yeah, I can see how he really didn't mean that we should assassinate Pres. Chavez when what he actually said was "if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it." But he really meant kidnap. Or taunt. Or something.
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UPDATE (8/25/05): Now he has apologized. "Is it right to call for assassination?" Robertson said. "No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him."

But I thought he didn't really MEAN assassinate when he said take out. I can see his frustration, though. It's so inconvenient when people think the US administration is out to get them. Really, it makes you want to just kill them. Oh, wait. Isn't that what they think? So if the US is going to kill them after all, then the person was right. Maybe that's what's frustrating. I give up. What is it with these televangelists preaching murder from their mass media pulpits, anyway?
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