GOP Leaders Respond on HATEee

I’m amazed that I have heard no statements from GOP politicians on this tragedy and Obama’s excellent response to it.  However, the politicians are not the party leadership.  In a poll conducted by 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair, Rush was voted most influential conservative, becoming the de facto leader of the GOP.  He beat second place finisher, Glen Beck, by more that two to one.  Under the Bush/GOP regime, graduates of Pat Robertson’s Regent University were several times more likely to receive federal appointments than Ivy league graduates, indicating that he is a spiritual leader of the GOP.  Here is how they responded to the disaster.

First, let’s examine Rush’s response:

Mr. Limbaugh wasted no time trying to turn the horrific tragedy in Haiti into a sleazy partisan attack on the very people working around the clock to save as many lives as possible:

[Paraphrased via Media Matters here and here] I want you to remember, it took [Obama] three days -- three days! -- to respond to the Christmas Day fruit of ka-boom bomber ... He comes out here in less than 24 hours to speak about Haiti ... [later in same program] ... they'll use this to burnish ahhh their, ahhh shall we say, ahhh credibility with the black community, both the light skinned and, ahhh, hmmm ... dark skinned black community ...

Wow. At this very moment the streets of Haiti's capital are still littered with bodies of the dead and dying. Thousands of men, women, and children -- including an unknown number of Americans -- are buried alive under tons of rubble, many no doubt crying out in agony for help that will come too late. And this sick twisted racist monster doesn't even have the decency to wait for them to finish dying before equating their death and suffering to an incident where no one got a scratch except the bad guy… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

I know that’s hard to believe, so here’s the video:

 

That just turns my stomach.

Next is Robertson’s contribution:

Every disaster that befalls a nation -- hurricanes, floods, terrorism, earthquakes -- constitutes God's punishment of a people gone astray, according to Pat Robertson, who famously blamed feminists for 9/11 and gays for Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew. In the case of Haiti's devastating earthquake, he blames an ostensible deal that black Haitians made with the Devil in order to win their emancipation and independence from the French colonials who enslaved them. So, in Haiti's case it might not be God who did the nation in, but rather the Devil calling in his chit.

 

From today's edition of "The 700 Club":

 

[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the Devil said "Okay, it's a deal." And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island is Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc.. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. Uh, they need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God and out of this tragedy. I'm optimistic something good may come.

 

Because, of course, black people couldn't possibly have the wherewithal to defeat their white oppressors without a little supernatural help -- and it sure wouldn't be coming from God, right?

 

The association of black people with the devil goes back to Puritan times -- remember the role of the slave Tabitha in the Salem witch trials? -- and it lives in the unconscious of a certain sort of white evangelical Christian. The sort like Pat Robertson...  [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Alternet>

And, because this is so incredible, here is the video:

 

What a hypocrite!

I remember a few years back, Disney World adopted a policy not to discriminate against openly gay employees.  Robertson called on his sheeple to pray that a hurricane would hit Orlando to show God’s judgment against Disney World.  The next hurricane to hit the US made landfall at Virginia Beach, Robertson’s HQ.  Doesn’t God have a divine sense of humor?

As I was doing my research this morning I felt so angry that I was considering how to express my outrage without coming off like a wing-nut.  Then I heard Keith Olbermann’s comment, so I’ll leave you with that.

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