Pat Robertson today:

A US TV evangelist has said comments in which he appeared to call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez were misinterpreted.

Pat Robertson on Monday:

“If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”

A rant follows.

You know how in the aftermath of 9/11, there was an outcry for the leaders of moderate Islam to condemn the hatred and anti-Semitism being spread by extremists?

Just once, I’d love to hear a deafening chorus of voices from mainstream Christianity say — with full-page ads, speaking tours and mass rallies — “That guy doesn’t speak for us. Not just during these occasional brain farts, but the whole protect-the-powerful, blame-the-poor, whack-the-women, scapegoat-the-gays agenda that Robertson and his ilk are promoting. And memo to the media: please stop reporting that this handful of bitter, hateful control freaks is any kind of representation of the bulk of Christianity, because they aren’t.”

To their great credit, some brave Christian voices do speak up — but they rarely merit a mention in newscasts and on the front pages.

Back in 2001, when Jerry Falwell publicly blamed gays, women’s libbers and the ACLU for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I figured he was history. I still thought there were limits to the kind of venom you’re able to get away with in American politics, even on the right, even in the age of Karl Rove.

Well, live and learn. A half-assed apology and a few months later, Falwell was being treated like a sane person again by the media and the Bush administration alike.

I wish I had some doubt that the same will happen to Robertson (who, incidentally, chimed in with a proud “Well, I totally concur” after Falwell’s 2001 comment). He followed today’s parody of an apology with a justification, citing the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — who was executed for his participation in a plot to, yes, assassinate Adolf Hitler.

So don’t count on well-deserved obscurity for Pat Robertson. His penance will be measured in seconds, not years — just long enough for the obligatory “tsk, tsk” from the White House, conservative church leaders and columnists. Calling for murder, like praying for the death of Supreme Court justices, just isn’t enough to ostracize someone these days.

It’s only a matter of time before his pronouncements are treated once again as newsworthy. That’s too bad, because Robertson’s comments about Chavez are of a piece with his accusations against feminists, lesbians, gays and liberals: the addled ramblings of a man whose views are informed by equal measures of hate, incohate anger and willful ignorance.