Kmiec Endorses Obama

Douglas Kmiec is a former Romney adviser who was previously co-chair of the Romney campaign's committee on courts and the constitution. He's also a constitutional law professor, and has headed the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Today, he announced his support for Sen. Barack Obama. It's an interesting read.

Mitt Romney: Out of the Race

He leaves on a classy note:

If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

I think that we can safely say at this point that our next President (whoever it is) will be opposed to torture and will craft a serious energy policy. Congratulations, America.

UPDATE: Here is a part of his speech:

Brian Lehrer on Mitt Romney

McCain Lies About Romney

In one of his recent attack ads in Florida, John McCain says this about Mitt Romney:

McCain Radio Ad

Narrator: They say Mitt Romney likes numbers. His campaign says he likes to look at data. Well here are some numbers that should scare every Florida Republican. . . . 20 billion dollars – that’s what Romney promised Detroit to bail out the auto industry on the back of taxpayers.

I'm no fan of Mitt Romney, but this is a highly dishonest mischaracterization of his position. What Mitt Romney said was this:

Romney (Jan. 14, 2008): If we're going to be the world's greatest economic power, we also have to invest in the future. It's time for us to be bold. I will make a five-fold increase – from $4 billion to $20 billion – in our national investment in energy research, fuel technology, materials science, and automotive technology. Let's invest in our future.

That is certainly not a bailout. It is an investment in technology and energy research - something we need if we're going to lessen our dependence on oil. This is particularly dishonest since McCain himself has claimed that he can make America "oil-independent" somehow within five years (!), a ridiculous claim on its face, and one that would absolutely require far more than $20 million in energy and technology investment.

Why is this guy labeled the "straight talker"?

UPDATE: Here is McCain lying about Romney's position on abortion. It looks like McCain will probably end up winning Florida today, but it's certainly a dirty win in my mind.

Mike Huckabee on Mitt Romney

Mike Huckabee recently ran this attack ad against Mitt Romney, accusing him of dishonesty. What I found particularly mind-bending was that Huckabee criticized Romney because of the "No Executions" during Romney's stint as governor. First of all, that's a pretty bizarre criticism coming from somebody running so heavily on the fact that he's a former minister. I'm not quite sure that Jesus would approve of such a position* (although Huckabee has suggested in the past that he would).

Second, and most damning for Huckabee, is the fact that Massachusetts does not employ the death penalty. For someone harping on "dishonest attacks," this is really a pretty big deal. He's criticizing Romney here for not doing something that he had no legal ability to do. Furthermore, it's important to point out that Romney attempted (and failed) to restore the death penalty in Massachusetts.

I personally don't like Huckabee or Romney, but I'm really sick of these false and misleading advertisements. Especially since Huckabee himself ends the ad by saying, "If a man is dishonest to obtain a job, he'll be dishonest on the job."

*According to the Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." When a woman was about to be stoned to death for adultery, Jesus came to her aid and said "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." I'm not aware of any Jesus quotes endorsing retribution (the Old Testament God, on the other hand, suggested that we use the death penalty to kill homosexuals and disobedient children). Plus, he might be a bit sensitive about how he was subject to the death penalty, himself.

UPDATE: Factcheck.org has more on this ad here.

Campaign Ads

Barack Obama:



Rudy Giuliani:


Mitt Romney:

Wolf Blitzer on Mike Huckabee on Mormonism

Wolf Blitzer hosted Mike Huckabee on the Situation Room, and asked him this question:

BLITZER (12/12/07): All right. The New York Times Sunday magazine has a long profile of you, and one line has jumped out and is causing a lot of commotion right now.

When you asked this question to the interviewer, the reporter who wrote the story, you said this: "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Now, as you know, Mormons say that's a canard, they don't believe that, that's been a canard spread by people who don't like Mormonism.

I want you to explain what you were doing by even raising that question.

Is this really just "a canard spread by people who don't like Mormonism"? This is what the official Latter Day Saints website says:

On first hearing, the doctrine that Lucifer and our Lord, Jesus Christ, are brothers may seem surprising to some—especially to those unacquainted with latter-day revelations. But both the scriptures and the prophets affirm that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers. Jesus Christ was with the Father from the beginning. Lucifer, too, was an angel “who was in authority in the presence of God,” a “son of the morning.” (See Isa. 14:12; D&C 76:25–27.) Both Jesus and Lucifer were strong leaders with great knowledge and influence. But as the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus was Lucifer’s older brother. (See Col. 1:15; D&C 93:21.)

How could two such great spirits become so totally opposite? The answer lies in the principle of agency, which has existed from all eternity. (See D&C 93:30–31.) Of Lucifer, the scripture says that because of rebellion “he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies.” (Moses 4:4.) Note that he was not created evil, but became Satan by his own choice.

When our Father in Heaven presented his plan of salvation, Jesus sustained the plan and his part in it, giving the glory to God, to whom it properly belonged. Lucifer, on the other hand, sought power, honor, and glory only for himself. (See Isa. 14:13–14; Moses 4:1–2.) When his modification of the Father’s plan was rejected, he rebelled against God and was subsequently cast out of heaven with those who had sided with him. (See Rev. 12:7–9; D&C 29:36–37.)

That brothers would make dramatically different choices is not unusual. It has happened time and again, as the scriptures attest: Cain chose to serve Satan; Abel chose to serve God. (See Moses 5:16–18.) Esau “despised his birthright”; Jacob wanted to honor it. (Gen. 25:29–34.) Joseph’s brothers sought to kill him; he sought to preserve them. (Gen. 37:12–24; Gen. 45:3–11.)

Is it really too much to ask for CNN to do a little bit of research before devolving into the he-said-she-said style of journalism?

Mitt Romney's Religion Speech

Mitt Romney is set to give a speech about his Mormon religion, and has released excerpts to the press. Here is one sample:

"Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people."

It seems strange to see Romney invoke the civil rights movement here to make an argument for the inherent goodness of religious solidarity. This is somewhat besides his point (which appears to be carefully worded), but Romney's Mormon religion has a somewhat checkered history with regards to the civil rights movement.

From the April 13, 1959 edition of Time magazine:

Whatever they may do or leave undone about their Negro brethren, most U.S. churches hold that all men are equal before God. One notable exception: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book of Mormon teaches that the colored races are descendants of the evil children of Laman and Lemuel, who impiously warred against the good children of Nephi and received their pigmented skin as punishment. Last week a Utah State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights drew on this Mormon scripture in a scathing report on the state of the tiny nonwhite minority in Utah.

This is what Brigham Young taught his followers:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Journal of Discourses, Vol.10, p.109)

Additionally, people of the African race were not permitted into the priesthood until 1978. From the June 19, 1978 edition of Time magazine:

It was a historic moment for Mormons, who believe that the prohibition against blacks as priests goes back as far as the sons of Adam. It is taught in the Book of Abraham, one of three scriptures revealed to Prophet Joseph Smith and accepted as holy writ only by Mormons. According to the key verse, descendants of Cain (identified elsewhere in Mormon scripture as blacks) are "cursed as pertaining to the priesthood." Because of this the racial bar could only be lifted by a "revelation" direct from God. The church leaders said they had spent many hours in the Upper Room of the Salt Lake City Temple. Eventually God "confirmed that the long-promised day has come."

Of course, the church has since come around, and every Mormon I've ever met has been super-nice, and not at all racist in any perceivable way. It's also worth noting that Romney's father marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement. I don't intend on casting aspersions on the Mormon people collectively. But I think that it's important to point out that it was not exactly a leading light in the move for equality, and that it finally came around despite traditional church doctrine.

Nor was Jerry Falwell quite on board with the civil rights movement. In fact, he called it the "civil wrongs" movement.

Romney's point in the quote I cited at the beginning appears to be merely that social justice causes need to get religious people on board in order to succeed. I just wanted to point out that sometimes, they also have to run counter to those religious establishments, doctrines, and leaders who resist and retard progress.

Likewise, the Christian bible has passages sanctioning slavery, ordering the execution of homosexuals, and making parental disobedience a death-penalty offense. Nonetheless, these very specific and very absurd passages (like the very absurd Mormon passages relating to black people) have been superseded by vague "love your neighbor" passages. That is a very good thing (for everyone but the biblical literalists). However, "love your neighbor" is not a specifically religious concept.

I think that this is a very important distinction to draw. That's why it bothers me when people like Mitt Romney and Dinesh D'Souza try to claim religion as the exclusive or primary source of these values. That's also why it bothers me so much when Mitt Romney draws his moral circle specifically to exclude the non-religious, as he did here: "One of the great things about this land is that we have people of different faiths and different religions, but we need to have a person of faith lead the country."

The "love your neighbor rule" of ethics is one shared by all of us, religious and non-religious alike. It is this that has overridden the awful, discriminatory and wrong practices of the past (even those codified in Church doctrine).

UPDATE: The speech has been made. It is available here.

I disagree very much with this:

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Seriously. As a non-religious person, I find it highly absurd (and offensive) that Mitt Romney thinks my beliefs are incompatible with freedom.

Also, is anybody else bothered by the fact that this Mitt Romney quote:

"A person should not be elected because of his faith"

DIRECTLY contradicts this Mitt Romney quote?

"One of the great things about this land is that we have people of different faiths and different religions, but we need to have a person of faith lead the country."

Because they undoubtedly say exactly opposite things. They are 100% in conflict with each other. He talks big about religious tolerance when it comes to Mormonism, but doesn't seem to apply the same standard to atheism and agnosticism.

I also don't care for this:

I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God.

Seriously? Every faith? Even the Westboro Baptist Church, the Raelians, and Heaven's Gate? Because some faiths are seriously crazy.

Romney also quotes the passage I used to kick off this blog:

It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.

There's more inanity to the speech (much more), but I'll leave it here, at the same place I started.

UPDATE II: Here is Chris Matthews's reaction:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I have to say if he wins the presidency, it started here . . . For the first time in this campaign, and it's been a long campaign, I heard greatness this morning.

No surprises here. According to Matthews, "He has the perfect chin, the perfect hair, he looks right."

UPDATE III: Andrew Sullivan responds here:

By insisting on faith - any faith - as the proper criterion for public office, Romney draws the line, oh-so-conveniently, so as to include Mormonism but exclude atheism and agnosticism. And so he side-steps the critical issue in the debates over religion in public life: what if there is no unifying faith for a nation? What if faith itself cannot unify a nation - and, in fact, can divide it more deeply than any other subject? That is our reality. An intelligent and wise conservative would try to find a path to a common discourse that does not rest on religious foundations.

The second flaw is that he simply cannot elide the profound theological differences between the LDS church and mainstream Christianity. Since I'm a secularist - a Christian secularist - this doesn't make a difference to me. But if you are appealing to religious people, especially fundamentalists, on the basis of faith, you cannot logically then ask them to ignore the content of the faith. The religious right have tried to do this with the absurd neologism, the "Judeo-Christian tradition," as if the truth-claims of Christianity and Judaism are not, at bottom, contradictory. But the "Mormon-Judeo-Christian tradition" is a step too far even for those who have almost no principles in using religion for political purposes.

UPDATE IV: Jonathan Rowe reacts here:

I agree with Andrew Sullivan. The biggest problem I have with his speech is Romney seems to try and form an alliance with other religious conservatives, mainly orthodox Christians — find common ground between them — and gang up on secularists, atheists, and agnostics, in an us versus them mentality. America belongs to everyone, not just religious folks.

UPDATE V: Rev. Barry Lynn's reaction:

“I think it is telling that Romney quoted John Adams instead of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison,” Lynn continued. “Jefferson and Madison are the towering figures who gave us religious liberty and church-state separation.

“I was also disappointed that Romney doesn’t seem to recognize that many Americans are non-believers,” Lynn continued. “Polls repeatedly show that millions of people have chosen to follow no spiritual path at all. They’re good Americans too, and Romney ought to have recognized that fact.

UPDATE VI: Mitt Romney frames the separation of church and state like this: "They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong." Don Byrd points out the absurdity of this straw-man argument:

We are a nation full of religious individuals and communities, but not a religious nation. Church-state separation is necessary to preserve religious freedom - both the freedom to believe and the equally important freedom not to believe. It is not an effort to remove God or religion, nor to "separate us from God." It is simply the requirement that agents of government refrain - in their official capacity - from promoting or preferring, criticizing or harassing religious believers and non-believers. When the official institutions of the state are free of the enactment of religion, then and only then can the business of religious liberty really begin.

The kind of fear-mongering we see from candidates today - contorting the institutional separation of church and state into a supposedly serious threat to the place of God in our lives - preys on many Americans' most solemnly held beliefs. It is the height of cynicism and exploitation.

UPDATE VII: Townhall.com's Hugh Hewitt thinks that the speech was "simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst."

UPDATE VIII: Constitutional law professor Jack Balkin's analysis:

Although this may lose any remaining respect Hugh has for my opinions, I beg to differ. The speech is chock full of (how can I put this delicately?) rhetorical tensions. On the one hand, "[A] presidential candidate [should not have to] describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution." On the other hand, two paragraphs later Romney emphasizes that "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind." Having announced that it would be wrong to go into details about his beliefs, why does he emphasize that one single issue, an issue which separates his beliefs from many religions, but says nothing that might separate him from conservative Christians? Why does he rush to emphasize Jesus's divinity but not other aspects of Mormonism that are just as important and perhaps more distinctive? The answer is that despite his statements to the contrary, he knows there is a religious test for public office, and the people grading the exams are the Republican base.

Again, on the one hand, "A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith." On the other hand, "[f]reedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom," and "We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. . . .Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'" These remarks strongly identify Americans and Americanism with belief in God. Romney does nothing to suggest otherwise. Indeed, his central point is that the religious share "a common creed of moral convictions." Note carefully his list of religions that form this common creed, all Western and monotheist
[...]
It is not a call for religious tolerance, unless tolerance means scrambling to identify yourself with majority religions and lumping together every other belief system as alien to American values and outside the "common creed of moral convictions" that all true Americans share.

UPDATE IX: David Brooks reacts:

When this country was founded, James Madison envisioned a noisy public square with different religious denominations arguing, competing and balancing each other’s passions. But now the landscape of religious life has changed. Now its most prominent feature is the supposed war between the faithful and the faithless. Mitt Romney didn’t start this war, but speeches like his both exploit and solidify this divide in people’s minds. The supposed war between the faithful and the faithless has exacted casualties.

The first casualty is the national community. Romney described a community yesterday. Observant Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims are inside that community. The nonobservant are not. There was not even a perfunctory sentence showing respect for the nonreligious. I’m assuming that Romney left that out in order to generate howls of outrage in the liberal press.

UPDATE X: The National Review's Ranesh Ponnuru:

It would have been nice if Romney, while making room for people of all faiths in this country, could have also made some room for people with none.

UPDATE XI: Pat Buchanan has a predictably awful take on this speech:

He moved up to that higher common ground on which we all can stand. The ground on which all Americans stand is the dignity of the individual as a child of God.

No. That's not common ground at all. It leaves out millions of Americans who believe no such thing. All he's doing is broadening the circle of acceptance to include Mormons (notice how he says he won't explain Church doctrine, then goes on to conveniently mention just the Mormon doctrine that overlaps with that of traditional Christians) and specifically exclude nonbelievers.

UPDATE XII: Well maybe George Romney didn't quite march with Martin Luther King, Jr. after all:

A defensive Romney was peppered with questions today on exactly what he meant when he said -- most recently on Meet the Press -- that he "saw" his father march with Martin Luther King Jr. Recent articles have indicated that his father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, didn't march with the civil-rights leader.

Admitting that he didn't see the march with his own eyes, he said, "I 'saw' him in the figurative sense."

"The reference of seeing my father lead in civil rights," he said, "and seeing my father march with Martin Luther King is in the sense of this figurative awareness of and recognition of his leadership."

"I've tried to be as accurate as I can be," he continued, smiling firmly. "If you look at the literature or look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of -- in the sense I've described."

The questioning did not relent. "I'm an English literature major," he insisted at one point. "When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there." (He meant the Super Bowl, of course.)

Mitt Romney on Minority Religious Affiliations

From the Christian Science Monitor:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Gee, Mitt. I'm afraid that since Mormons only account for ~1-2% of the United States population, we won't be able to elect you as President, either. But don't worry, you could still maybe be comptroller or something. Because we're not biased against Mormons or anything like that.

Mitt Romney Calls For Redundant Withdrawal

In an attempt to boost his anti-U.N. credentials, Mitt Romney said the following:

"We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council."

We don't currently have a seat on the council, so withdrawal would be impossible. In fact, we've been boycotting the council for years now.

Romney and the Courts

Mitt Romney recently revealed his Advisory Committee on the Constitution and the Courts, a panel that will assist him in selecting his judicial nominees (if he wins the nomination). Among those on the panel is Pat Robertson's own Jay Sekulow. This is the guy who dragged Michael Schiavo through the Florida courts, losing every step of the way, and then convinced Congress to intervene (by passing an unconstitutional law) in an unusual case of judicial subversion. This is the guy who advocates stripping American citizens of the right to even be heard in court to address Establishment Clause violations. This is the same guy who earns $600,000 a year, making him the 13th highest paid "charitable organization" executive in the country. He even dips into the funds of his non-profit organizations to charter private jets... from a business owned by his own family. Now, Romney has tapped this guy to make important decisions about who the next Supreme Court nominees will be.

Another Committee member, Mary Ann Glendon, advocates a Constitutional amendment denying homosexual couples the ability to ever get married like heterosexual couples. According to Glendon, such "special treatment to one group of citizens" would "[impair] the rights of children," and has to be cut off permanently.

Let's hope this guy doesn't get elected.

Mitt Romney vs. Area Woman

All's Well That Ends Well

Jerry Falwell was found unconscious in his office at Liberty University today. CPR efforts were unsuccessful, and Mr. Falwell is no more. The cause of death has not yet been declared.

In his honor, here are a few quotes.

On Separation of Church and State: “The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country”
-Sermon (4 July 1976)

On Public Schools: "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"
-America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53

On the 9/11 Attacks: "...throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."

In the end, Barry Goldwater said it best: “I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.”

Update #1: John McCain and Mitt Romney have released statements reacting to Falwell's death.

"An American who built and led a movement based on strong principles and strong faith has left us. He will be greatly missed, but the legacy of his important work will continue through his many ministries where he put his faith into action. Ann and I have had the honor to talk and meet with Reverend Falwell and get to know him as a man of deep personal faith and commitment to helping those around him. He will be forever remembered."
-Mitt Romney

"I join the students, faculty, and staff of Liberty University and Americans of all faiths in mourning the loss of Reverend Jerry Falwell. Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country.Our thoughts and prayers are with Dr. Falwell's family at this difficult time."
-John McCain


Update #2: Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church (yes, the godhatesfags.com people) has announced that the organization will be protesting Falwell's funeral. According to their website: "There is little doubt that Falwell split Hell wide open the instant he died."

Seven Years of Marriage

Mitt Romney recently gave the commencement speech at Pat Robertson's Regent University (which is tied for the lowest ranking law school in the country), and he made a rather curious comment about marriage in France:

"It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking," Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

The curious thing about this comment is that it's 100% not true. So where did Romney get this idea from? Well it seems like Mitt is confusing French civil law with that of fellow Mormon Orson Scott Card's Sci-Fi novel "The Memory of Earth," a fictionalization of the first 100 years of the Book of Mormon set in outer space. It takes place on Planet Harmony, which was colonized 40 million years after the destruction of earth, and the citizens contract for marriage in seven-year terms. They also have to resist the computerized Oversoul from maintaining control over the human race. This certainly seems the most likely candidate, since Romney has already expressed his affinity towards Sci-Fi novels written by crazy people (he says that his all-time favorite novel is Battlefield Earth). As far as the French connection goes, perhaps he's mixing this book up with the French comedy "7 ans de mariage."

Mitt Romney On Pat Robertson

Mitt Romney recently gave the commencement speech at Pat Robertson's Regent University. Mitt had nothing but adoration for Pat: “This university, its students, its alumni and the faculty serve as an example of Dr. Robertson’s dedication to strengthening and then nurturing the pillars of this community and our country: education, fellowship, and advancement.”

First off, I wasn't aware that Pat Robertson was a doctor. He went to law school, but failed to pass the bar. He later earned a Master of Divinity degree from the New York Theological Seminary, but I wasn't aware that this earned you the title "doctor". Maybe he got an honorary degree from someplace...

Anyway, let's see what Pat Robertson has said in the past to strengthen the pillars of our community.

Pat Robertson on Dover Pennsylvania: "I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city."

Pat Robertson on the September 11 attacks: Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.

Pat Robertson on Islam: "I believe it’s motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with. … [T]he goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination."

Pat Robertson on Ariel Sharon's stroke: "You read the Bible and He says 'this is my land' and for any Prime Minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says 'no, this is mine.'"
-2006

Pat Robertson on assassinating Hugo Chavez: "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."
-The 700 Club, August 22, 2005

Pat Robertson on Hinduism: "The origin of it is all demonic. We can't let that stuff come into America. We've got the best defense, if you will -- a good offense."
-1995

Pat Robertson on non-Christians: "When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm. `What do you mean?' the media challenged me. `You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?' My simple answer is, `Yes, they are.'"
-Pat Robertson's "The New World Order," page 218

Pat Robertson Invoking Godwin's Law: "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."
-Interview With Molly Ivins