There has been no shortage of universally negative attention in the mainstream media to Pat Robertson’s call for the U.S. government to send in its “covert operatives” to “take out” Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (see my
earlier post. Every major media outlet has carried something on this story. No other story received
so much attention from the blogosphere this week, either. On Wednesday, Robertson
made a sad attempt to deny he had said what everyone knew he said, then apologized for speaking out of “frustration.” (“August is a slow news day [sic] but it seems like the whole world is talking about my comments about Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez,” quotes CBS news from his statements on the Wednesday episode of
The 700 Club.)
But the most interesting response by far was the staff editorial published yesterday in the leading U.S. daily The Washington Post. The editorial strongly objected to Robertson’s remarks, but the tone was similar to many of its recent editorials on Iraq. The “liberal” newspaper, in both cases, is quick to attack Republican or “conservative” figures – not because of their anti-democratic adventures, but because their excesses make such adventures harder to sell, breaking the carefully constructed good-U.S.-versus-evil-foreign-dictators narrative that media such as the Post work so hard to construct…
The Post editorial leads:
We won’t even pretend to have given television evangelist Pat Robertson's latest obnoxious utterance much thought, considering his long history of pious bloviations that have made him come across to most Americans as, well, witless. Were it not for the widespread attention being given in Latin America to Mr. Robertson's call on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, we would have preferred to allow the Christian Coalition's founder to continue his slide from America's mainstream into the obscurity he has so richly earned. But his latest bit of foolery is worth a comment or two -- if for no other reason than Mr. Robertson, in an act of stupidity only he could outdo, has handed Fidel Castro's acolyte a propaganda gift of immeasurable value.
Mr. Chavez, who, like Mr. Robertson, is infatuated with the absurd, fancies that the United States is out to kill him. It so happens that Mr. Chavez, when not meddling in the affairs of his neighbors and spawning anti-democratic movements, seems to enjoy portraying himself as a target of U.S. assassins -- a charge that he makes without evidence and that has been strongly denied by the Bush administration.
The second paragraph here is truly spectacular. In the same breath, the Post condemns Chávez for making claims of an assassination attempt without any evidence, and then repeats the same tired old charge that the Bush administration and State department have repeated again and again, without any evidence.
But time and time again, the State and Defense departments, and other Bush administration officials, have trotted out this old slander, that Chávez is arming the FARC, that Chávez is harboring Islamic terrorists, that Chávez is behind everything that happens in Bolivia. Every time a journalist has demanded that some actual evidence or documentation actually be produced, the subject is quickly changed or some vague, nonspecific answer is produced. But the Post editorial board happily parrots them, using Robinson’s comments as simply another excuse to attack the Venezuelan president with much of the same language that it and other editorial boards in the commercial media employed to prepare the U.S. public for the invasion of Iraq. (For instance, lamenting the prisoner abuse scandal because it makes “success more difficult in Iraq.”)
The Post editorial concludes:
The White House, embarrassed by Mr. Robertson yet again but too afraid to mix it up with his narrow but loyal base of support, simply averts its gaze. For all that, Mr. Chavez owes Mr. Robertson a thank-you note.
What was so reprehensible about Robertson’s comments, then, was not their imperialistic, anti-democratic spirit, but the fact that they ultimately hurt the United States’ interests in its propaganda war with Venezuela.
Democratic hawks, who gain political advantage by sounding the drums for more war and attacking Republicans for not fighting hard enough in Iraq, can now add Venezuela to their political arsenal. These “liberals” just need to hope that no more right-wing whack jobs like Robertson speak outside the script on this, or their game will be up.
View from Venezuela
Submitted August 26, 2005 - 1:08 pm by Jean FriedskyFrom those with whom I spoke, Venezuelans understand that though Pat is a bit out-there, he is not simply an "ordinary citizen" but a man with a following (a religious one at that) and that he's an active member of the governing GOP party. A friend told me that he believed Pat's words were an honest expression of either a latent or simmering desire among the US government and upper-class to rid the world of Chavez. He didn't think that the US government was going to up and actually assasinate Chavez right now but that this statement showed the great threat his nation poses to US imperialism and that Venezuelans understand that there may be severe consequences for thier anti-US stance in the world.
My friend and others I heard discussing the situation, insightfully noted the hypocracy of the US state department's reaction to Pat's comments. That this outright call by a high-profile public figure to assasinate a democratically elected leader was not immediately condemned as act of terrorism, clearly demonstrated that the "war against terrorism" is nothing more than the US's excuse for supressing dissent against their imperialist objectives. In effect: If you're on our side, who are we to censor opinionated private citizens from speaking the truth, er, um, i mean, what they believe?
What I learned from my few weeks in Venezuela is that Venezuelans have a strong sense of pride about their nation, their "process" towards socialism and their leader. Robertson's comments fanned this patriotic flame. "Killing Chavez would start a war," my friend told me. "We [Venezuelans] know that there may be a time when we have to defend ourselves and we will be ready. We have to be. This comment made it very clear."