Pat Robertson sparks furor with call for assassination.

from staff and wire reports

Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuela's president set off a global media frenzy Tuesday, as religious and political leaders heaped scorn on the Virginia Beach-based Christian broadcaster.

The Bush administration quickly distanced itself from Robertson's remarks, but Venezuela's vice president said Robertson should be investigated for his "terrorist statements."

On the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club" Monday, Robertson said "the time has come" for U.S. agents to kill Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's democratically elected president.

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Venezuela's Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Tuesday that his country was studying its legal options, adding that how Washington responds to Robertson's comments would put its anti-terrorism policy to the test.

"The ball is in the U.S. court, after this criminal statement by a citizen of that country," Rangel said. "It's huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those."

A spokeswoman for Virginia Beach-headquartered CBN said Tuesday that Robertson had no additional statement. A spokesman for Regent University, which shares a campus with CBN, said no school officials were available for comment. Robertson heads both CBN and Regent.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, appearing at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday, said : "Our department doesn't do that kind of thing. It's against the law. He's a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks "inappropriate."

"This is not the policy of the United States government. We do not share his views," McCormack said.

Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Rangel called Robertson "a man who seems to have quite a bit of influence in that country," adding sarcastically that his words were "very Christian."

The comments "reveal that religious fundamentalism is one of the great problems facing humanity in these times," Rangel said.

Robertson's remarks appear likely to stoke tensions between Washington and Caracas. The United States is the top buyer of Venezuelan crude, but Chavez has made it clear he wants to decrease the country's dependence on the U.S. market by finding other buyers.

Winding up a visit to Cuba, Chavez told reporters at Havana's airport that he did not have information about Robertson's comments.

"I haven't read anything. We haven't heard anything about him," Chavez said. "I don't even know who that person is."

But Robertson has name recognition around the world, and his penchant for provocative comments has a magnetic effect on news organizations in the United States and around the world.

On Tuesday, his pro-assassination statements were reported by media in Japan, Russia, Australia and Britain. The same global attention followed his statement in 2003 that the U.S. State Department headquarters in Washington should be "nuked."

John Green , a political scientist at the University of Akron who studies the Christian right, said the lack of an influential evangelical movement in Europe and elsewhere drives the foreign media's fascination with Robertson.

"They all want to know about the religious right. Some have delusions about how powerful it is; some have more accurate news," he said. "Robertson is perceived as being a leader and spokesman for conservative Christians."

Robertson's inflammatory comments are often met with incredulity by non-evangelicals, but Tim Morgan , an editor at Christianity Today magazine, said there may be method to the broadcaster's seeming recklessness.

"He knows, in the kind of media environment we exist in today, that you have to be outrageous just to get on page three, let alone page one," Morgan said. "There aren't many better at that than Pat Robertson."

But Morgan said the credibility of evangelicals in general may be threatened whenever Robertson makes a harsh or outlandish comment.

"The worrisome concern among other evangelical leaders around the water cooler is, 'There he goes again,' " Morgan said.

Robertson's pro-assassination comment was particularly troubling, Morgan said, because it seemed to endorse murder and contradict Christian teachings.

"Any reasonable Christian ethicist probably lies awake at night wondering whatever possessed an individual like Pat Robertson to make the kind of comments he did," Morgan said. "It defies reason."

Robertson's remarks are "appalling to the point of disbelief," Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA, said in a statement issued in New York. The council is a liberal-leaning organization representing 35 Protestant and Orthodox Christian denominations around the country.

"It defies logic that a clergyman could so casually dismiss thousands of years of Judeo-Christian law, including the commandment that we are not to kill," Edgar said.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, a fellow television evangelist, had a full schedule Tuesday and did not have time to comment on Robertson's remarks, a spokeswoman said.

The Rev. James E. Parke, a Virginia Beach Catholic priest who leads a weekly Mass at Regent's law school, said Robertson's comments violated the broadcaster's own pro-life views.

"I'm very disturbed that someone would come out and say, 'Let's kill someone,' so clearly," Parke said. "It flies in the face of the deep respect for life he prides himself on."

This story was compiled from reports by staff writer Steven G. Vegh and The Associated Press.