PREACHER ALSO ISSUES "FATWA" CALLING FOR SALMAN RUSHDIE'S DEATH
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va - Hours after televangelist Pat Robertson retracted his call for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's assassination, he told the viewers of his television program "The 700 Club" that for the good of America, he, Robertson, should be assassinated by U.S. covert forces.
"We have the ability to take me out," he said. "And I think the time has come to do that. How many more ridiculous things must I say before this becomes obvious to even my most ardent followers? Like when I suggested that the State Department be blown up by a nuclear device. Or that that feminism encourages women to kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. Or that the Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves."
Robertson conceded that he could shut himself up by simply canceling his television program, but he ruled that out because "the ratings are just too strong."
Robertson also issued what he termed a fatwa calling for Britsh essayist Salman Rushdie's death. "The Ayatollah Khomeini called for this Rushdie character's death back in 1989," Robertson explained, "so I went and read the book that got him in such hot water, 'The Satanic Verses.' I didn't really understand any part of it because it was so literary and all, but I think that inability, in itself, warrants my joining the Islamic people in this fatwa."
"I mean, so okay, I retract my comments about this South American [Hugo Chavez], but somebody's got to die."
