Atrios on Robertson:

The amazing thing about what Robertson said isn’t that he suggested assassinating a head of state would be a good idea. It’s what the alleged infraction by this head of state which makes him deserving of execution is. Robertson isn’t accusing him of being a tyrant, or of killing his own people, or of violations of human rights (the rights of Christian people in Pat’s world), or genocide, or anything else which might normally inspire people to condemn a foreign leader to death. Nope, here is, to Pat Robertson, the capital crime of Hugo Chavez:

“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. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop…. This is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.”

He’s got oil, and if he won’t give it to us we’ll just have to kill him.