A Pat on the Back - New York Times

A Pat on the Back - New York Times



July 6, 2005
A Pat on the Back
By SARAH VOWELL
Since I have been hired, temporarily, to write about the news, here's some: seeing Pat Robertson on television cheered me up. Until recently, about the nicest thing I would have said about this televangelist is that he isn't boring. Remember when he wanted to boycott the "Satanic ritual" that is Halloween? Or when he said, "The husband is the head of the wife"? Or when he warned the city of Orlando that the flying of homosexuals' upbeat rainbow flags might incite divine retribution in the form of hurricanes or "possibly a meteor"? Yep, good times.

Nevertheless, when I spotted Robertson in a lineup of celebrities including Brad Pitt, Bono, George Clooney and the also-never-boring Dennis Hopper, I was delighted to see him. He was in the One Campaign's television ad asking for help in the crusade against poverty, starvation and AIDS in Africa and elsewhere.

In the commercial, Robertson says, "Americans have an unprecedented opportunity," and then Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, of all people, finishes his sentence, concluding that "we can make history."

On a recent "Nightline," Robertson showed up with his new best friend, Clooney. When asked if his group Operation Blessing would promote "the responsible use of condoms" along with abstinence in its AIDS education program in Africa, Robertson answered, "Absolutely." Pat Robertson!

"I just don't think we can close our eyes to human nature," he continued, adding that with regard to teaching proper condom use, "you have to do that, given the magnitude." I could have hugged him.

Robertson is one of the people in this dream I've had for 20 years, a nightmare I call "the handshake dream." In it, I am attending some G.O.P. all-star party. (A girl can dream.) And I have to decide whose hand I deign to shake. Bob Dole and John McCain: of course (war heroes). Orrin Hatch: fine (stem cells). But Robertson? He's always been a solid "No way!" as he sulks by the punch bowl with Strom.

Seeing Robertson in that commercial with Bono - and Bono's hair - is a little like listening to Paul Anka's new recording of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." At first, it's jarring to hear the guy who wrote "Puppy Love" for Donny Osmond sing Kurt Cobain's lyrics: "a mosquito, my libido." But listen hard and you can hear what Anka hears. He doesn't hear the ranting of weirdos. He hears the poetry, the architecture of a justifiably standard song like "Autumn in New York," like "Fly Me to the Moon."

My soft spot for strange bedfellows aside, I am a capital-D Democrat who still believes in the value of partisan politics. And I hold onto that belief despite the fact that I belong to a party whose only true talent is writing exceedingly eloquent concession speeches.

On Monday, anticipating an epic dust-up regarding his new nominee for the Supreme Court, President Bush said he hoped that special-interest groups on both sides would "tone down the heated rhetoric." They shouldn't, though.

This is about the lifetime appointment of a person who will be making life and death decisions for millions of people for decades to come, not about some petty time waster like - come on, again? - flag burning. It's so important that we should agree to melt together on the slopes of a Kilauea of issue-ad spew.

Not every public problem, however, is Roe-v.-Wade and lifetime-appointment complex. Some problems are as black and white as the photography in that silvery One Campaign ad Robertson is in. "Every three seconds, one person dies," the ad says. And so it was repeated at the Live 8 concert by performers hoping to get the attention of the men in Scotland today for the G-8 summit meeting.

That fact, that every three seconds an African human being dies from hunger or AIDS or, honestly, mosquito bites in this day and age, is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Way, way, way dumber than that thing about Orlando and a meteor from God. That every-three-seconds statistic is so moronic, and having the richest countries in the world do something about it is such a total no-brainer, that Pat Robertson will join up with Dennis-bloody-Hopper of "Blue"-bloody-"Velvet" to spread the word.

I don't know what will happen in Scotland today. But I do know that tonight, if I have the handshake dream - Pat Robertson, put 'er there.


Maureen Dowd is on book leave.

Sarah Vowell, a contributor to public radio's "This American Life," is the author, most recently, of "Assassination Vacation."