Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign has hungered for some form of blessing from the religious right. Today, the former New York City mayor and supporter of abortion and gay rights got an unexpected endorsement from televangelist Marion G. "Pat" Robertson.
But the world famous Christian conservative's declaration of support left out a few things. It did not, for example, refer to Robertson's approval of abortions for the purposes of population control as expressed in China in a 2001 CNN interview.
Nor did the Giuliani campaign's press release mention Robertson's business partnership in a gold mining venture with former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. For that matter, what about Robertson's suggestions that it might not be a bad idea to assassinate or "take out" Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and North Korea's Kim Jong-Il?
Robertson's near-legendary status on the Christian right is based on his founding of three institutions, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN); his television program, The 700 Club; and the formerly extraordinarily influential Christian Coalition.
On matters affecting the bottom line, however, Robertson - who has made himself millions as the proprietor of a Christian empire - has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to let his belief in free market capitalism override traditional morality.
In terms of Robertson's ostensible commitment to the 'sanctity of life,' the biggest shocker was a 2001 CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer when Robertson stunned viewers with this comment:
"If every family over there [China] was allowed to have three or four children, the population would be completely unsustainable ... I think that right now they're doing what they have to do. I don't agree with the forced abortion, but I don't think the United States needs to interfere with what they're doing internally in this regard."
The pro-abortion comment produced a firestorm on the right. The conservative web site/news service WorldNet Daily headlined its story "Pat Robertson's Brain Abortion." The Family Research Council's Charles Donovan declared, "This policy [of forced abortion] doesn't need comfort, and it certainly doesn't need comfort from a Christian and a conservative."
Why this tolerance of a seemingly abhorrent practice from the normally fire-and-brimstone television preacher? Perhaps, it was connected to a company, Zhaodaola, that Robertson helped found and financed. At the time of Robertson's endorsement of the Chinese government's population control measures, Zhaodaola was setting up Internet facilities in China and was in need of government support.
Another Robertson company, Freedom Gold, set up shop in Liberia during the brutal dictatorship of Charles Taylor, under an agreement which provided the government, and its head, Taylor a share of the profits.
In a 2001 column criticizing Robertson's Liberian investment, the Washington Post's Colbert King wrote:
"The international community has received a steady stream of reports detailing police floggings, kickings and burning of a detainee's skin with hot plastic to extract confessions; victims stripped naked, made to kneel on iron bars and whipped with belts and cables; the jailed people lying face down on the floor while police walk on their wrists and forearms."
In addition, there were numerous reports at the time of the Robertson investment that Liberia under Taylor had become the site for diamond trading with Osama bin Laden. What was the Christian leader's rationale for doing deals with Taylor?
If these matters were of concern to Giuliani today, he did not mention it. "I'm very encouraged by Pat's support," Giuliani said. "His confidence in me means a lot. His experience and advice will be a great asset to me and my campaign."
Giuliani, a leading critic of welfare dependency, might be interested in the following story if he were to become president.
When the Bush administration was gearing up its "faith-based" program of channel federal money to religious charities, Robertson denounced the effort: "Federal rules will envelope these organizations, they'll begin to be nurtured, if I can use that term, on federal money, and then they can't get off of it...It'll be like a narcotic; they can't then free themselves later on."
But when the administration announced the initial 21 grants, who was on the list? Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing. All told, Operation Blessing received $23 million from the federal government.