Make me a promise, will you? When I get as goofy as Pat Robertson will you get hold of my wife and have her lead me away from the computer? Promise? All right. Odds are I’ll be senile. Which is not Pat’s problem. He’s always been weird.
Robertson’s two years younger than I (born in 1930) but he’s had that vacant-minded chuckle even when he’s talking seriously… and misty eyes… that tell you he’s a brick short of a load. Yesterday he came out for legalizing marijuana. Yeah Pat, just what we need now. We got incipient war in Korea, Iran with the bomb, the Russians stoking Iran with nuclear enrichment, China virtually owning us, Charlie Krauthammer seeing Obama cresting, gays going in the military and ordered to shower with the straights and now this ex-Southern Baptist charismatic preacher (charismatic preaching an anomaly to Baptists anyhow) sees the most important thing is to start Americans legally puffing.
No, once again: I really don’t think it’s senility. And if you thought this is just a sudden development, sorry to disappoint. He’s been strange ever since I first met him when he announced for president in 1988. At that time I was a political officer for a major corporation and interviewed presidential candidates. As a Catholic I get sort of whoozy with evangelical preachers on TV anyhow, especially beefy ones when they close their eyes tight into little slits, frown like they’re experiencing gas pains and yellSweet J-e-s-u-s! There’s a lady in Sleepy Eye Minnesota that’s got a lump, I say, got a lump in her breast! Her daughter’s gettin’ married tomorra and she can’t git to the doctor til the day after tomorra so until then put her in Your lovin’…I say lovin’…arms, hold her tight…” and then chuckle like Robertson always does especially when he talks about the hot blue flames sprouting up from Hell’s oven and says “heh-heh-heh what’s the next request Rachel?”
Anyway Robertson was just packing up from his home base in Virginia Beach to go to Cedar Rapids to launch his drive to win the Iowa GOP caucuses (which he did win by the way) and invited me to join him at his country club for lunch.
I was going to Washington to lobby anyhow so I caught a commuter plane and met him at his Club. We talked about the issues there and he seemed all right, not unlike any other salt-and-pepper mega-millionaire considering a run for the White House. We talked Cold War, trade, domestic politics—all of which he was well-versed in, being the son of longtime Sen. A. Willis Robertson, a tagalong to the conservative Dem Byrd machine. But then he started in on a hurricane that was sweeping down on Virginia Beach. How he got on that I can’t remember but I guess it was a digression from how we should handle the then Soviet Union to God’s Providence.
The hurricane was comin’ right at us, , he said with a pointless chuckle that didn’t really fit in to the story. It was charted to hit the coast and was aimed right at my television studio [pointless giggle]. The studio when all is said an’ done could have been totaled and wiped us out [giggle-cough]. So ah went to mah office and knelt down and prayed like this—Sweet J-e-s-u-s!...” At this point the business executives dining there were watching intently but they were round-eyed, no chuckling.
Sweet J-e-s-u-s There’s a terrible storm comin’ that can destroy…ah say d-e-s-t-r-o-y all we have been doin’ in Your Name!
By now the main dining room was hushed. Ah say hushed. All ah ask Sweet J-e-s-u-s is that the storm, the hurricane, be detoured to save the studio which is the conduit…ah say the con-doo-it… to communication in Your Name! A detour, puleeze!. [Pointless chuckle].
All was silent—even the waiters carrying in their trays were hushed. The only sound was Robertson’s chuckle.
Well, I said, what happened?Mah prayer wuz answered. The storm did de-toor.
Where did it go?
Oh, it veered and took out a whole lot of Front Royal [chuckle].
I didn’t say anything but felt when a hurricane’s bearing down on Virginia Beach and threatens to hit Chuckles’ TV empire, the place not to be is Front Royal. I’m a political realist and I see the signs now of a big liberal drive to rehabilitate Barack Obama. We know Charlie Krauthammer’s aboard and now just like blackbirds on a telephone wire, when one settles there they all gather. There’s Chris Matthews, he’s one blackbird; David Broder is another. Here comes Katie Couric. Lookie there, it’s Matt Lauer and coming up fast is Brian Williams. They’re all due to say that this embattled president’s got his groove back. He took that super-heavy, lop-sided Democratic congress and got `em to pass repeal of don’t-ask-don’t-tell which led Barney Frank to declare it’s okay for gay males to shower with straights but by no means should straight males shower with straight females cause they’ll likely engage in all that disgusting heterosexual stuff….gosh there has to be some absolutes somewhere or we’ll go decadent.
Anyhow all those media blackbirds sitting on the same telephone wire as Charlie will soon be touting the idea that by passing the gay rights thing and the concurring resolution to keep the government going until March and the Nuclear Treaty Obama has risen to Reagan proportions. Soon it’ll be all over the media since Nancy Pelosi has hired Stephen Spielberg to hype it.
Something tells me that this is not the time for Republicans to run Haley Barbour had some very nice things to say about the White Citizens Councils, has a fat red face, double chin, a protuberant belly, who looks like he’d be more comfortable in Junior Gilliam overalls ala the `70s TV hit Hee Haw, is governor of Mississippi with an Yazoo accent that whatever he says sounds likeyou all’s in a heap of trouble, boy—heah?
Maybe Spielberg will try to be like Hitchcock. Remember in the "Birds" they all sat on the telephone wire and watched the humans- then they attacked in mass.
ReplyDeleteOf coarse real birds don't have sexual problems- they remain true to gender God has given them.