Centerfield

Robertson suggested Sharon's stroke was God's retribution on him. What will God's retribution on Robertson be? (I have suggestions!)

Posted by: Tully at January 5, 2006 07:33 PM

They really don't agree. Robertson wanted a harder line on the Palestinians and Ahmadinejad wants (to vastly understate it) a softer line.

Here's a great line for this moderate crowd-when both sides of a fight are sniping at someone in the middle, he's either a total doofus or is getting it right. With Sharon, I think it was the latter.

Posted by: Mark Byron at January 6, 2006 08:11 AM

My humorous point, Mark, was of course that they were both alike in wishing someone dead for political purposes...

As for Sharon, do remember that when he took office he was denounced as a terrible, no-good hardliner, who would destroy the last chance for peace, etc., etc. Right or wrong in any given situation does not depend on being in the "middle". Sometimes the right thing to do is the "right-wing" action, sometimes it is the "left-wing" action. My own view is that Sharon has not changed over the years. Like Reagan wanting to negotiate with the Soviets, but only from a position of strength, Sharon saw certain steps as necessary before he could make concessions to the Palestinians.

Posted by: PatHMV at January 6, 2006 08:33 AM

Tully,

Just for fun...let's hear some suggestions. It's Friday...I need a laugh.

Posted by: AR at January 6, 2006 10:20 AM

My only wish is that some politician would have the guts to publically denounce Robertson as a fraud.

Sharon took a huge leap of faith trying to do the right thing. Not sure it will work, especially now. I admire him for trying. Too many fools like Robertson on this planet and even more fools that follow him

Posted by: Jim M at January 6, 2006 10:35 AM

Robertson's punishment will be to be reincarnated over and over until he gets it. When he dies, his young unforgiving soul will be transported to heaven for only as long as it takes God to say "not even close." And then he'll be demoted to snail for 1001 generations, until he truly understands what its like to be eaten by frenchmen because you are too slow to get away.

Posted by: bk at January 6, 2006 10:50 AM

Abel, if Brian's last sentence didn't make you laugh, then call a Code Blue and get out the paddles!

Posted by: PatHMV at January 6, 2006 11:31 AM

I was going to suggest cancer of various body parts (rectum, penis, etc.) or an actual stroke of lightning, but I like Brian's idea better.

Posted by: Tully at January 6, 2006 11:47 AM

I think Sharon made a serious mistake withdrawing from Gaza, uprooting its Jewish residents and thereby inviting more terrorism, however I never wished him any harm.

Posted by: Laura at January 6, 2006 12:01 PM

But Robertson's remarks aren't any worse than the vile garbage coming from the left regarding Sharon. You should read what they have been saying on the comments section on lefty blogs.

Posted by: Laura at January 6, 2006 12:04 PM

Actually ahmandinejad's views of Sharon are pretty much in line with most leftists.

Posted by: Laura at January 6, 2006 12:08 PM

Yes, there are a plentitude of idiot leftists who agree with Iran's idiot President. But, that's not really news to anyone here. We know that extremists tend to be idiots. Roberston for example, who is an idiot rightist. He is, as you take pains to carefully point out, no worse than ama-dinna-jihad or that cohort of leftists who are also off-the-deep-edge idiots.

Which I think was Pat's original point.

Let's now take a moment to notice that unlike Iraqi Prez AD Jihad, Robertson is a figure who is beloved by a substantial portion of Americans. Which I for one find troubling. Neither leftists nor AD Jihad is beloved by a substantial portion of the American public. Not unless you conflate garden variety partisan liberals with leftists. I sure don't. I think there are a bunch of Americans who don't support the war, distrust corporations, and intensely dislike President Bush, but aren't therefore leftists pining for the installation of a politburo. YMMV.

Posted by: bk at January 6, 2006 12:22 PM

I think that leftists (take Michael Moore, please) are beloved by a substantial portion of the American public. Moore is not a garden variety partisan, but a hard-core, actually anti-American (we're fat, dumb, and stupid, remember?) whacko leftist. Nevertheless, lots of people went to see his movie, and President Carter invited him to sit in a place of honor at the Democratic National Convention. Much of the MSM treated his movies as gospel truth despite many proven lies in them.

And its no more news to anybody on here that there are extremist righties around than that there are extremist lefties. I would have happily mentioned the whacko lefties, except that their extremism is not usually based on religion and would thus not have fit the ironic juxtaposition of the two preacher/politicians wishing someone dead for political purposes.

Posted by: PatHMV at January 6, 2006 02:16 PM

Pat, you're probably right about that, or at least close. I must be a little colored today due to having listened to parts of Sean Hannity while in the cellar finishing some furniture. It made me feel like there had to be way more people ranting about leftists than there could possibly be actual leftists. None of these people seem inclined to even consider that the set of liberals might not be identical to the set of leftists, and that troubles me. But then maybe you're used to feeling like most liberals are unlikely to consider conservatives as distinct from violent knuckle-dragging pro-corporate bully boys.

It does seem to me that there might be more "rightists" who currently have national forums with big audiences, largely due to talk radio. I know that off the top of my head I can come up with a handful of pretty prominent conservative voices that are wholly outside of actual political positions that I view as primarily irresponsible rabble-rousing pundits, like O'Reilly, Coulter, Hannity, Robertson and his ilk. As a counterpart to the right, I don't see a corresponding volume of similarly notable prominent liberal voices, at least not ones who actually can make a living solely by giving their opinion and have high name recognition (which would exclude actors and elected officials, who have day jobs). Moore's the only one that comes to mind as a regular newsmaker whose main job is opinionator. Maybe John Stewart, but he's a comic, which again is a little different. Jesse Jackson? oe maybe Al Sharpton? I guess they'd count as Robertson's counterimages. Maybe it's that I view them as people I try my best to ignore, who don't have much insight, and who say outrageous things to try to get people to listen to them, because they can tell that no one outside a small group pays them any heed.

Not trying to draw you into a game of CPD either. Just thinking out loud. Certainly there's something of a problem inherent in such comparisions in that we can't really expect a mirror image of the dynamics of the wings, since each wing draws its power from different sources. That would go a long way towards explaining the disparity I'm claiming to see.

Or maybe it really is just Hannity today. I'd like to demote him to snail too.

Posted by: bk at January 6, 2006 02:46 PM

Brian, we all have our days of knee-jerk outrage, no problem...

Conservatives of course see the leftists as having ample support in most everyday media, from Letterman to George Clooney and Alec Baldwin, to the New York Times. So we don't think that there is an unbalance, on the whole. I do often wonder why the left has not been able to come up with its own talk radio hosts, though. Franken has certainly come up far, far short.

Myself, I'd like to see, in both the evening news and on talk radio, far fewer mouthpiece/opinionators and far more actual elected officials. So very little of what we hear about politics actually comes out of the mouths of the politicians themselves. All these analysts (network news being about the worst, I think) insist on giving us the "context", and "explaining" what the politician has just said. I'd rather see them. Rather than a talking heads show of commentators, I would rather see, week in and week out, panels of actual politicians and elected officials expressing their opinions.

Posted by: PatHMV at January 6, 2006 02:56 PM

One really needs to emphasize the difference b/t mainstream liberals and Leftists. The hard Left hares Sharon, much like Iran's extremist Pres. Extremists think alike. Which is why Pat Robertson and AD Jihad sound alike. They're both extremists. Robertson's on the far-right, but he still has his extremist agenda.

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at January 6, 2006 05:28 PM

Let's now take a moment to notice that unlike Iraqi Prez AD Jihad, Robertson is a figure who is beloved by a substantial portion of Americans.

I guess that depends on your definition of "substantial". I don't know of any Christians (ok maybe my ultra fundy cousins) who "love" Pat Robertson. I would bet even many if not a majority of his 700 club viewers would agree with his viewpoints. Posted by: c3 at January 6, 2006 07:06 PM

While Brian's suggestion certainly made me laugh, I don't think we'll have to wait for Robertson's punishment. It seems he's already being forced to put his mony where his mouth is, which is far more painful than being eaten by the French. (no obscene puns from the peanut gallery, please!)

As for leftists, most of the mainstream (like me) view Moore as something of a joke, for supporting Nader in '00. (the only reason he supported Kerry in '04 was because he disliked W even more). Yes, he makes fun of American ways, but so does Dave Berry, so does Florence King, so do a lot of great American humorists. (including Mark Twain, who was considered a much more hardcore leftie in his time than Moore is in his)

Perhaps Limbaugh is a better radio host than Franken (I wouldn't know, since I prefer to read my news), but I'd much rather read a book by Franken than by Limbaugh. But hey, that's just me.

I don't doubt that cons view the Times as "liberal", but to real leftists, the NYT is considered "a Bush apologist rag". Leftists accuse the NYT of sitting on the wiretapping story for a year until the election was past, while cons say that the NYT should never have reported on the story in the first place. It's all a matter of perspective.

Posted by: Blue Jean at January 12, 2006 12:22 PM