"Reverend Hit Man"

John Haas, a citizen of Nebraska, writing to the Omaha World-Herald takes this insightful look at a cleric who advocates death threats on public officials:

"The Rev. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's 'The 700 Club,' said on air, 'You know, 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.'

"When religious leaders from other nations such as Iran do the same thing, we call them supporters of terrorism."

Of course, we Americans are much more inclined to consider rhetoric like Robertson's to be hyperbole; or perhaps he was just misunderstood. Or, as Robertson would have us believe, his comments were misrepresented by that ever-present bogeyman, "the media."

It's strange to me that some Americans do not respond more strongly to such extremist comments, or even actions that go beyond the pale, if said or conducted by Americans.

We can't even look to our past and offer up own examples of atrocities. Take James Dobson. As reported by The American Prospect from his 3 August "Focus on the Family" show's transcript, Dobson commented about embryonic stem-cell research:

"... I have to ask this question: In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and, I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind... [Y]ou remove ethics and morality and you get what happened in Nazi Germany."

Or you get the American south when the federal government conducted the Tuskegee
Syphilis Experiment.

Certainly, the unconscionable experiment in Tuskegee was not on the same magnitude of Nazi atrocities during World War II. However, it seems we should learn not only from infamous actions in other countries but from our own moral failures as well. And we should stand ready to oppose those in our midst, like Robertson, who speaks favorably of atrocious actions.