Robertson again blaming the victims

By Carl Hiaasen / Miami Herald

It’s no secret that the Rev. Pat Robertson is a yammering fool, but last week he hit a new low.

During a chatty sit-down segment of his television program, the 700 Club, the prominent Christian preacher offered his viewers a unique explanation of the terrible earthquake in Haiti:

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, `We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.’ True story.

“And so the devil said, `OK, it’s a deal.’ They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor . . . They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God.”

Robertson was referring to Haitian voodoo rites that were supposedly conducted before a slave uprising against French colonists in 1791. Why God waited more than 200 years to unload a natural disaster of such magnitude on an innocent generation of Haitians remains a question that perhaps God will answer for Robertson during their next private conversation.

It should be noted that Robertson’s idiotic comment was followed by a promise that one of his organizations, an aid group called Operation Blessing, would send medicine and workers to Port-au-Prince to help in the relief efforts.

A spokesman for Robertson has since scuttled forward to insist that the famous televangelist — a stalwart of the Christian Coalition and founder of the Christian Broadcast Network — wasn’t really saying that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by God’s wrath.

But that’s exactly what Robertson was saying.It’s what he always says when something bad happens.

By Carl Hiaasen Miami Herald