God Only Knows

Schieffer: Why Is Pat Robertson Is Supporting Rudy Giuliani?

(CBS)  Weekly commentary by CBS Evening News chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.

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Back in 2004, when Pat Robertson said that God had told him George Bush was going to win the election in a blow-out, I decided to check it out.

Now, I've never claimed that I have inside information on God's thinking, but I did reach a source who considers himself very close to the Lord. He agreed to talk on the condition of anonymity, since he is not authorized to speak for God.

Well, the way he told it, Robertson must have had a bad connection or just didn't hear it right. Of course, God knows how these things are going to come out, my source said. He knows everything. But he never tells how elections or football games are going to come out. If he did, he'd be inundated with people trying to find out the winning lottery numbers and things like that. It's just more trouble than it's worth.

So when Robertson announced he was supporting Rudy Giuliani, who is for so many of the things that Robertson has spent his life railing against - gay rights and abortion rights to name just two - I decided to go back to my high-level source with the obvious question: Why?

There was a long pause. Finally, my source said "God only knows."

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E-mail Face the Nation.

[suggestion1]

This is not a response to this story. I just wanted to give "60 Minutes" a suggestion for a news story.
Do a segment on seat fillers at talkshows, and game shows. What percentage of the audience is actually seat fillers... and do seat fillers keep the prizes they win?

[quatrops]

Witty riposte! Well, it''s early yet.

[cfin5]

Lastly, cfn5, your placement of quotation marks in your 3:45 suggests that I used the term "pro-justice". I did not.

Posted by Quatrops at 07:38 AM : Nov 14, 2007-------------------
No kidding.

[quatrops]

Lastly, cfn5, your placement of quotation marks in your 3:45 suggests that I used the term "pro-justice". I did not.

[quatrops]

And, while you''re at it, cfin5 (or any anti-abortion "Christian" out there), give me your understanding of Numbers 5:15-28, and (the clearly misogynistic) 30-31.

The inerrancy advocates must really have a fun time with those passages.

[quatrops]

Cfin5 plays word games again. "Infant" and "fetus" are two different words having two different definitions. To suggest they mean the same thing, in addition to serving no logical purpose, makes irrelavent any dialogue concerning the legal and moral justification for destroying a fetus. Does he think it unimportant to have that dialogue?

It is called the DEATH penalty. The opposite of "death" is "life". To suggest there is an antonymic relationship between "death" and "justice" is just another word game, an obfuscatory attempt to bolster a weak argument.

Additionally, the historical evidence of the occasional execution of the "wrong person" is well documented. Were YOUR loved one the victim of such a miscarriage, I doubt you would term it "justice".

There is a legitimate apologia for executing a person convicted of a capital crime which is diminished by your word game with "life".

[cfin5]

"Pro-life" should also include being against the death penalty,-------------That''s called "PRO-JUSTICE".

[cfin5]

Word games like how pro-infanticide advocates prefer "pro-choice" because it doesn''t sound so.......BLOODY?

[quatrops]

Why do anti-abortion folks have to play word games? Why "unborn little boys and girls" instead of "male and female fetae"? "Pro-life"? How about "pro-fetus"?

"Pro-life" should also include being against the death penalty, and against this absurd war. I suspect many of you do not include those in your definition of "pro-life"

To suggest or imply there is no biological difference between "pre-born" and "post-born" is absurd. One can make perfectly logical and moral argument against destruction of a fetus without suggesting it is no different than infanticide. Playing word games doesn''t change that.

[cfin5]

Pat Robertson''s endorsement of Giuliani in my view makes him an accessory via the voting booth to the continuing American holocaust of unborn little boys and girls, just so his not favorite candidate might loose.......very shallow and unscriptural I''m sure of!

[cfin5]

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adapted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed"---Thomas Jefferson, June 12, 1823........Vote for Jefferson by voting for RON PAUL, The Constitution honoring candidate in 2008! GO USA!!!

[scribe7716]

Robertson would support Judas if he thought Judas had the best chance of beating Hillary.

[quatrops]

I notice the 2:15 commenter is a touch less that straightforward about who he is suggesting is a prophet. Robertson? Bush?

One could imagine he is somewhat lacking in the courage of his convictions. Or does he just like to see his name in print?

[dmgenet]

RE: "People who claim to speak to or for a god, and fervetly believed it, used to be put into mental hospitals.

Actually they were called prophets"

Actually, Vatican II allowed us mere mortals to talk to God directly especially when confessing our sins. And even before the Catholics ''allowed'' us to speak to god other religions encouraged it through prayer and reflection. We are all prophets.

I believe the main message that Jesus was preaching was to be wary of organized religion as was he. After all it was a religious organization, not the Romans, that wanted him dead.

With re: to mental hospitals. Robertson cloaks his hatred of humanity through his religion. He does not belong in a mental hospital. He belongs in hell.

[dmgenet]

Robertson is the symbol of the religious right''s last grasp (?gasp) for power. At least the ones who still believe that politics and religion can mix and provide results. The religious right has a lot of it''s members moving away from politics and back to what they do best; preach fire and brimstone.

I am sure there will be more religious right leaders who will court the Republican party in the future but for now they were hosed by Bush and his neocon cabal and very disappointed in the Bush agenda.

Aren''t we all.

[tibu987]

Hold on, I''ll be right back, God is calling me on my direct line to heaven.
O.K., I''m back.
God told me that Robertson and Giulani are both whackos and to vote for a Democrat.
Thanks God, but I was going to anyway.

[logicanada]

Trust a nut ball like Robertson to endorse someone even the Pope has said he wouldn''t give communion to.

[tibu987]

The religious kiss of death.
So long Rudy......

[alanrobisch]

People who claim to speak to or for a god, and fervetly believed it, used to be put into mental hospitals.

Actually they were called prophets

[quatrops]

Shieffer says Robertson''s call to God must have had a "bad connection"? Try "non-existant. All he''s ever had is a toy plastic phone.