Pat Robertson

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. - Democrats trying to portray President Bush as too headstrong when he decided to invade Iraq got help this week from an unlikely source: evangelist and Bush supporter Pat Robertson. Appearing on Paula Zahn Now on CNN Tuesday night, Robertson recalled a private meeting with Bush in Nashville, Tenn., before the Iraq war began. He said the president asserted that there would be no war casualties. "I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings.

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.

PHILADELPHIA - Dick Cheney's soooo boring he makes Al Gore look almost life-like! AIN'T THAT FUNNY? George W. Bush is -DUH! - a big, dumb pothead! Heee-heeeee! Get it? OK, so there's not much to be got. But don't shoot the messengers, those being the comedians who have to make a living off the Republican National Convention and will have at least as much of a challenge in two weeks when the Democrats gather in Los Angeles. And their message? This convention is slightly less funny than an industrial accident.

McCain becomes the counterweight to Pat Robertson in the GOP, hopefully keeping Bush balanced upright. The vote to oust its first African-American sitting judge will come back to haunt Baltimore County. The China trade issue pits the presidential party against the congressional party and this election can't settle this. The tall ships will come up the bay as if there weren't enough sailboats out there already.

WASHINGTON -- Humbled by his crushing defeat on Super Tuesday, former Sen. Bill Bradley will withdraw from the race for the Democratic nomination today and endorse his triumphant rival, Vice President Al Gore, aides said yesterday. On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain huddled with his top advisers and campaign staff, reviewing options ranging from a hasty withdrawal to a possible third-party bid. His campaign said last night that McCain would make a statement at noon today amid reports that the Arizona senator will announce his withdrawal from the race.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- The Republicans who live along the shores of Lake Ontario here have generally been moderate to progressive in their politics. They tended to elect centrist Republicans, as well as Democrats, to Congress and the state legislature. In 1980 they supported George Bush over Ronald Reagan. And in 1992 and 1996, many of them defected from the Republican line to vote for Bill Clinton because they thought the religious right had gained too much influence in the party. Thus, on the face of it, this should be good ground for John S. McCain to make his case that Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition have become the tail wagging the Republican dog. "A lot of people felt that in the last two elections we went too far to placate the Christian right," said John Bouchard, the party activist leading the McCain operation in Monroe County.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- John McCain is taking an extrordinary political gamble with his blunt attack on Pat Robertson and the religious right. It is a strategic stroke that might give him the Republican presidential nomination but leave the party itself in a shambles. What the Arizona senator has done is say out loud what many Republican leaders have been saying privately -- that they resent the influence of the Christian fundamentalists in shaping both policy and national tickets. On the one hand, this willingness to confront Mr. Robertson and others on the extreme right may help Mr. McCain turn out more Republicans who share his views in primaries next week here in New York and five New England states in which the fundamentalists are not a major political force.

SOME years ago I had to decide whether to ask that th respirator that was keeping my 85-year-old mother alive be turned off. I did ask. She died. The decision was painful. It was not difficult.Mom had made her wishes clear in a living will, and her body's systems were misfiring randomly and shutting down one by one. Postponing death meant needless, if only subconscious, torment for her.As unpleasant as all that was, I can't even imagine how much more traumatic it would have been if a grandstanding governor and state legislator had forced me to fight in the courts for the right to make a decision that state law permits.

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.

SOME strong advocates of the death penalty for first-degree murderers are having second thoughts in the case of a Texas woman convicted of the ax murders of two Houston people in 1983. Karla Faye Tucker, 38, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 3.Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson is one of those who has come to Tucker's defense. Mr. Robertson believes that Texas officials should spare her life because she says she has been born again.The Rev. John Boyles of El Paso, Texas, agrees.