Heh. Indeed.

I have little to say about Pat Robertson's call for assassination today, except to note that this guy played a big role in the current conservative ascendancy in this country. Ralph Reed was his protege, and the Christian Coalition, which in part spearheaded the Republican electoral triumphs in the 1994 midterms, was his baby. Pat Robertson isn't some marginal conservative nitwit, like Fred Phelps. He's a mainstream mainstay for the Right in this country, and a major leader for George W. Bush's evangelical base.

I'm reminded of the last few episodes of The West Wing's second season, when President Bartlet was dealing with an attempted coup d'etat in Haiti at the same time that he was coming clean with his multiple sclerosis. At one point, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry says this:

Mr. President, there will never be real elections in Haiti if the military thinks it can simply kill the winner.

The relevance of that quote to Mr. Robertson's suggestion as to how to deal with a democratically elected leader of another country, and the following implications this has for our current (and, in my view, half-assed) attempts to create a democracy in Iraq, are left to the reader.