Pat Robertson

ROSS PEROT'S extravaganza was the Jerry Lewis Telethon of politics: an interminable rally at which thousands of decent citizens trying to do good had to indulge the high-pitched ravings of an egomaniacal clown.William Bennett was right, if unsuccessful, when he advised his party's would-be presidents "not to pander to Mr. Perot" by showing up in Dallas, on the grounds that he is "nothing but trouble."But however depressing the spectacle of Republicans and Democrats alike brown-nosing Perot, his pander-thon was not the most disturbing flexing of political muscle by a would-be demagogue we will see this year.

WASHINGTON -- Political reporter David Brody is punching his keyboard with two fingers, checking the Web for mentions of his stories. Up pops a liberal blog quoting one of his recent interviews. He's delighted - until he sees the snippet is attributed to "Pat Robertson's CBN." "Pat Robertson's CBN," Brody says in frustration. "We take that as a dig." Brody does work for Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, and mostly he's proud of that. But stereotypes are inevitable when you cover politics for a network run by a standard-bearer of the religious right.

DOVER, PA. -- Jim Cashman wants a recount, but even if he still winds up losing his seat on the area school board, he wants to make something clear: God has not been voted out of office. In fact, God is very much in good favor in the shops and creaky porch-fronts of this small Pennsylvania town, despite the community's apparent objection to discussing "intelligent design" in the local public high school, Cashman said. The Supreme Being certainly hasn't been "rejected" from the place, as religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested the other day. "That was an unfortunate thing to say," said Cashman, a 51-year-old auto repair shop owner who was among eight school board members voted out of office this week, ostensibly for approving a four-paragraph passage, read during ninth-grade biology class at Dover Area High School, suggesting an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution.

Prayer Isn't Proper In The Public SchoolsI found David Raupp's column on Pat Robertson (The Evening Sun, May 13) to be alarming. Pat Robertson certainly has twisted the Supreme Court's ruling on prayer at graduation ceremonies to fit his own purposes.Don't people realize that prayer is a form of worship? Since when do we knowingly provide public support for religious worship? The answer is when we want to proselytize.We were doing something wrong, it was brought to our attention and now we should accept that fact and go on. No one should be forced to participate in or listen to forms of worship (nor be subjected to religious proselytizing)

WASHINGTON -- In his largely ignored speech at the Republican National Convention, television evangelist Pat Robertson posed the real choice, in his view, facing the voters in November. Robertson said he couldn't believe that "the American people are so blind that they would replace Barbara Bush with Hillary Clinton."The last time anybody looked, neither the president's wife nor the wife of the Democratic presidential nominee was on the ballot in any state. The observation would be laughable had not the convention planners trotted out the president's wife, far more popular in the polls than her husband, in prime time to highlight their "family values" night in Houston.

PHILADELPHIA -- One of the continuing puzzles of the Bob Dole campaign is why the Republican nominee for president seems compelled to play to the far right of his party at this stage in the process.The evidence that he is doing so was there for all to see on their television screens and the front pages of last weekend's newspapers when Mr. Dole attended the conference of the Christian Coalition and was embraced by its founder, television evangelist Pat Robertson.It is just the kind of thing that is causing the Republican candidate serious defections among moderate Republican and independent voters who are offended by the religious right's obsession with the abortion question and other issues lumped under the heading of ''family values.

It was revealed recently that the suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing, Irish-American Timothy McVeigh, may have been inspired by an anti-Semitic book, "The Turner Dairies," by William Pierce. Apparently, a number of militia members profess anti-Semitic beliefs, and Michael Lind, writing in the New York Review of Books, traced some theories in Pat Robertson's book, "The New World Order," to anti-Semitic sources. Pat Robertson is a Republican power broker who has been credited with sending some of his followers to Congress.

IN RECENT weeks, critics of the religious right have much to cheer.First, the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson's political group, laid off staff members, cut programs and canceled publications. A former financial officer confessed to having embezzled funds. To complicate matters, since the departure in June of its cherubic ,, director, Ralph Reed, contributions to the coalition fell 36 percent.Then, Promise Keepers, the evangelical men's organization, announced it was laying off all 345 employees beginning March 1. In spite of its million-man rally in Washington last in October, its contributions were also down dramatically.

Boston -- WHEN ROBERT B. Fiske Jr., the independent counsel on Whitewater, reported that there was nothing to the horror stories about the death of Vincent Foster, that Foster had indeed committed suicide, I expected that those who had spread the stories would be called to account.The Rev. Pat Robertson, for example, the leader of the Christian coalition, had luridly suggested that Foster, deputy White House counsel, was murdered and the crime covered up by the Clinton administration.Rush Limbaugh, the talk-show host, broadcast a report that Foster died in an administration "safe house" and his body was then spirited to the park where it was found.

IF the Rev. Jerry Falwell represents Christianity, then count me out. The same goes for his partner in evangelical obsession, Pat Robertson. Christianity, as I know it, represents peace, love, forgiveness, charity, inclusiveness, struggle for the good of mankind as a whole, and hope. Falwell, a Baptist minister, does not seem to embody or espouse these objectives. He is narrow-minded, singularly directed in his own bizarre mission; he is mean and insulting. In an age when most of the Christian church is working toward ecumenism and understanding among the three monotheisms - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - he is a force of rejection and disparagement, which seems neither Christian, nor, really, American.