THOSE CRAZY TELEVANGELISTS

Perhaps the stupidest people people in America have been called by God to disgrace themselves as televangelists. Among the worst exhibitions of self-loathing ever performed in public was the weeping and wailing of Jimmy Swaggart as he confessed his penchant for prostitutes. Or the spectacle of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye when Bakker's dalliances were revealed.
I remember Oral Roberts' plea for contributions for some special project he was cooking up. Afraid that his fund-drive would fail, Roberts warned his supporters that God had told him that if the money didn't come in, God would "call him home". I guess the threat must have worked, as Roberts didn't croak until a couple weeks ago.
Then there was the time that Jerry Falwell seriously blamed the 9-11 attack on American gays and lesbians. He never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like.
But Pat Robertson takes the cake. I saw him on TV when a hurricane was expected to hit Virginia Beach where his college/broadcasting complex was. He announced that he had prayed that the hurricane would stay out at sea, take a northeasterly course, and that his property would be spared the devastation that loomed. I thought to myself at the time that his prayer was not nearly bold enough. He should have announced that he had prayed that the hurricane would hit his place directly, bash it mightily for five days, and that when the storm clouds lifted, not a single shingle would have been disturbed, and not a single tree would have been uprooted. Now that would have proved something.
Now Robertson has proclaimed that Haiti's current devastation is the result of its being cursed by God for the nation's deal with the Devil that was struck in 1791 to rid Haiti of its French colonists. I think the nation of Haiti was cursed by the twenty-year rule of mass-murderer Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier who was crazier than Idi Amin. But maybe not as crazy as Pat Robertson.