VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Responding to a growing chorus of denunciation, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized Aug. 24 for suggesting on his television show, “The 700 Club,” that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated. “Is it right to call for an assassination?” asked Robertson in a statement posted on his Christian Broadcasting Network Web site. “No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.”
In his original comments on the program Aug. 22, Robertson said: “We have the ability to take him out and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.”
He also said, “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.”
Representatives of groups as diverse as the State Department, the Department of Defense, the National Council of Churches, the Venezuelan government and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention all condemned the comments within hours.
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