Pat Robertson, Viewed By Venezuela's Bloggers

‘Christian’ televangelist Pat Robertson generated unprecedented headlines about Hugo Chavez in the blogosphere and in the U.S. media Tuesday when he publicly called for the assassination of the Venezuelan dictator.

Technorati listed it as its top search on the blogosphere.

Google listed it as its top story worldwide in all categories and ran it as its first banner story above a fatal Peruvian jetliner crash.

Bloomberg did five updates on this ’stop the presses’ news item before beginning more coverage here.

CNN did a special report.

Wikipedia was flooded with inquiries about who Hugo Chavez is.

It was the biggest single Internet traffic day for Venezuela of the year, in some cases topping even the recent plane crash last week and last year’s recall referendum. The degree of U.S. fascination with the topic was unprecedented. It was almost tabloidy, given that both Robertson and Chavez specialize in lengthy television demagoguery and pop off about various things quite explosively.

But in Venezuela, the reaction was a bit different. Hugo Chavez, speaking from Havana on his way home to Caracas, said he’d never heard of this person, Robertson, and he didn’t seem to want to dignify Robertson’s recommendations with a comment. Venezuela’s newspapers (I monitored them all day) had virtually nothing at all mentioning the Robertson incident until the end of the day, when the flood of news from the states seemed to get their attention.

Venezuela’s bloggers all reluctantly addressed the issue, but from their side all had something interesting to say.

Here is the view of Pat Robertson who urged the assasination of Hugo Chavez, from Venezuela’s bloggers:

VenezuelaToday reported that the story generated the most traffic of the year and was likely to endanger Americans still working in Venezuela.

Miguel Octavio cites a string of Robertson’s other absurd and stupid statements, roundly thwacking the guy. He compares Robertson’s and Chavez’s statements on nukes, lesbians, the State Department, religion, and other matters and finds both men wanting - but remarkably alike. He concludes that in a spirit of mutual cooperation, they both take a stretch in the slammer. Miguel also notes with satisfaction, via Instapundit and Little Green Footballs, that Robertson himself was an original inspiration for the concept of ‘idiotarian.’

Daniel Duquenal examines the debacle from the preacherman and talk show host angle and notes that Chavez and Robertson are mirror images as demagogues. He cites Robertson’s fervent wish awhile back that hurricanes hit Florida because Disneyland granted domestic partner benefits to its gay employees. That was the year the hurricane he was talking about turned around and whomped him over in Virginia. Daniel says that pretty much everyone in Venezuela is disgusted by the Robertson call and as for himself, he’d like to see Chavez alive and on trial and answering for all of his misdeeds, not dead.

Alek Boyd from London writes that there is one place where Robertson’s ilk can be securely found where he’s at - the Speaker’s corner in London where all the derelict lunatics and losers and unemployables go to stand on their soapbox. He compares Robertson to London’s Islamofascists and notes that this incident will go down in the pantheon of Chavistadom as just one of many - a la Castro - assassination attempts on the life of the dictator.

Bandera Negra (en espanol) writes that Robertson asks for the head of the ‘Goriloro’ (their name for Chavez because he is part parrot and part gorilla, an apt description), saying that Robertson was popping off what everyone else was privately thinking. Bandera provocatively ends the post in a mysterious ‘bang.’

El Liberal Venezolano (’Liberal’ means ‘libertarian’ to us gringos) reminds ‘Good Samaritan’ Pat of things like the 10 Commandments and other religious teachings that the unseemly preacher seems to have forgotten.

Gustavo Coronel, in an essay written just hours before Robertson’s pop-off, discusses more soberly the real reasons why Hugo Chavez must be dislodged from power. He doesn’t suggest assassination, however.

by A.M. Mora y Leon