THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504190009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: RICHARD COHEN
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
In defending himself against charges of anti-Semitism and general all-around moon-baying, Pat Robertson made an intriguing point. Stating that his controversial 1991 book, The New World Order was a best seller and ``the No. 1 best-selling Christian book in America,'' he noted in a letter to The New York Times that ``no one raised'' any objection to it at the time. With that, he cannily put his finger on why he and his movement, the Christian Coalition, are so troubling.
The charges against Robertson are that he is a grinning anti-Semite, a loony conspiracy nut and, since he says he is none of the above, then he is even further detached from reality than his writings suggest. To these, I add one of my own: The man is dangerous. Anyone who sees the hand of the devil in the setting of interest rates will, if he wins politically, take no prisoners. These fights are to the finish.
Robertson responded to accusations of anti-Semitism by writing letters-cum-op-ed pieces. He has also met with Jewish leaders to assure them that he is no anti-Semite. On the contrary, he brays a love of Israel and an admiration of Jews that brings out the Shakespeare in me: He doth protest too much.
As the founder of the Christian Coalition and the runner-up in the 1988 Iowa presidential caucus, Robertson is clearly a man of consequence. But he is not half as important as the many conservative Christians who either accept his leadership or look to him to champion their moral and religious values.
It is these people, by and large, who bought The New World Order and saw nothing amiss in what Robertson describes as a vast international financial and banking conspiracy run by the Freemasons and certain ``European bankers.''
As Jacob Heilbrunn has shown in The New York Review of Books, Robertson seems to have borrowed heavily from the works of Nesta H. Webster, a British anti-Semite of the 1920s. Still, it's remotely possible Robertson did not know the term ``European bankers'' has always been code for Jews. It's even possible that Robertson, a busy man, used the research material of others without knowing the source.
Regardless of what he now says he meant, Robertson used terminology that has an accepted meaning. If he was unaware of what he was saying, it's hard to credit all his readers with the same astounding ignorance. They read, they nodded their heads - and heard not a word of condemnation from others in their community. Either they share these views or they cherish political victory over principle.
The same accusation could be leveled at that collection of GOP presidential candidates who, in the name of Christian morality, have checked their own for the duration. Here, truly, are the unprincipled exhorting, of all things, principle. Only Sen. Arlen Specter has criticized the Christian Coalition. As for the others, none have muttered the least qualm about Robertson nor informed his followers that his economic theories - xenophobic and in the suburbs of anti-Semitism - amount to political pornography. Their allies in political expediency are certain politically conservative Jewish figures. They will accept any political ally in the crusade to send liberalism into history's vaunted dustbin.
With America bifurcating into rich and poor, with working class standards of living sinking, such issues as school prayer, abortion and the purported elitism of National Public Radio amount to diversions that would matter little if they did not distract us from what really ails the country. But it is also an embrace of know-nothingism under the cover of religion and conventional values - a passivity in the face of bigotry (against the foreign-born, women, homosexuals and - yes - Jews) that few of these candidates share themselves.
Robertson blames the political left for his troubles. His tactic seems to have succeeded and not a peep has come from either the political right or most religious leaders who, for reasons of their own, choose to accept Robertson as an ally - maybe eccentric but harmless. They are wrong. Robertson is dangerous because he sees politics as a fight against Satan - and compromise, therefore, is impossible. In an ironic sense, he is right. To gain his support, much of the GOP, not to mention too many religious leaders, have made a pact with the devil. MEMO: Mr. Cohen's column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group,
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