TV preacher Pat Robertson, just as a matter of course, believes the Obama administration is “destroying this nation.” The rationale varies — sometimes it’s the president’s support for gay rights, sometimes it’s abortion, sometimes it’s helping Americans receive affordable medical care — but the common thread is always the same: the radical televangelist thinks the White House is up to no good.
But as Right Wing Watch reports today, Robertson had an especially entertaining argument on the subject today.
Is Bob McDonnell the latest Religious Right “victim” of President Obama’s purported persecution of conservatives? Today on “The 700 Club,” Pat Robertson and Jay Sekulow did their best to paint the former Republican governor of Virginia as the victim of a “political prosecution,” decrying his corruption trial as a “political witch hunt” spearheaded by Attorney General Eric Holder.Robertson alleged, without any evidence, that Holder wanted to stop Mitt Romney from tapping McDonnell as his running mate in 2012 and is “behind all of this stuff.”
So, let me get this straight. The former Virginia governor, facing all kinds of serious corruption allegations and a mountain of evidence, was the subject of a lengthy investigation from criminal prosecutors. Last year, those prosecutors delayed McDonnell’s criminal indictment so as to avoid interfering with the state’s gubernatorial race. Eventually, a grand jury agreed to indict.
But Robertson and the lead of Robertson’s far-right legal group believe that’s just a ruse. What’s really happening, they assure us, is that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is out to get McDonnell for political reasons.
“It is just one more reason why this administration is just destroying this nation,” Robertson said.
Um, no.
It’s a safe bet that the televangelist has taken an interest in the matter because McDonnell, at the age of 34, got his Master’s degree from Pat Robertson’s college, where he wrote a thesis deriding “co-habitators and fornicators.” After the governor left office, he accepted a teaching gig at — wait for it — Pat Robertson’s college.
I am curious, though, what the TV preacher thinks is Holder’s motivation. McDonnell is no longer in office. Realistically, he’ll never be able to seek elected office again. In order for Robertson’s conspiracy theory to be the least bit coherent, the Obama administration would need some kind of reason to go after the former governor.
But there isn’t one. There’s literally no evidence to suggest there’s a conspiracy, but even if we put that pesky detail aside, there’s also no reason to think the Obama administration would want to bother with a conspiracy in the first place. If Team Obama were going to politicize the criminal justice system — you know, the way the Bush/Cheney administration did during the U.S. Attorney purge scandal — wouldn’t Holder & Co. indict current Republican officials?
Look for more on this on tonight’s show.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."