‘If Mondale had received this much notice, he’d have gotten more than three electoral votes.’ : The Pope of Pacific Palisades

The forces of Good are indebted once more to that old devil-hater Rob Scribner for having warned us in his own inimitable fashion that there is evil in our midst.

If it weren’t for Rob, we might have never perceived the Godless dangers implicit in the voting record of Congressman Mel Levine or the insidious liberal influence that permeates the campaign of television station KNBC to promote its weather reporter, Fritz Coleman.

Rob jumped right in with prayer and press releases to tell us that Levine “is diametrically opposed to nearly everything the Lord’s Church stands for.”

Then he followed that up just last week by being the first to proclaim that the Channel 4 billboards announcing “Fritz said it would be like this” were aimed not at promoting the weatherman but at extolling the almost-forgotten virtues of Fritz Mondale.

Press releases demanding a boycott of Channel 4 were sent to the media.

It doesn’t matter that more people know of Fritz Coleman than remember Fritz Mondale. It does matter that Scribner, a former Rams running back-turned preacher-politician, was quick enough to figure out just what those billboards were all about.

Rob, however, in the true spirit of a celestial team player, takes no credit for his amazing conclusions regarding Levine and Coleman. It was God’s idea.

This is the same God, you might recall, who also convinced the Pacific Palisades pastor in 1984 that he ought to run against Levine in the 27th District. Scribner lost but, God knows, he tried.

Neither Scribner nor his Friend, however, is willing to let it go at that. They are already campaigning for 1986. God, as political reporters like to say, will no doubt play a more active role in the new campaign.

Much of this is revealed in a letter sent by the Pope of Pacific Palisades to 250 ministers in the Westside congressional district.

In it, Scribner reveals the prodding by God and adds: “When God requires a thing of you, you must obey.” Then he goes on to ask for volunteers and money because, as everyone knows, God is nothing at all if not pragmatic in dealing with human politics.

Rob ends the letter by asking the ministers to “link arms with us as we literally ‘take territory’ for our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Some of those who received the letter are angry not so much that Scribner wants to take the 27th District for Jesus but that he espouses a philosophy faintly reminiscent of the John Birch Society, which is to intelligent reasoning what one deadly strain of listeria is to cheese.

Scribner has always denied that he is actually a member of the Society, although many of his supporters are Birchers and his campaigning smacks of Birchism. As Harry Truman used to say, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.”

Some of my radical friends in Santa Monica attribute Scribner’s Voice of God Politics to the physical punishment he must have endured as a running back. “There’s nothing like a blind-side tackle to get you carried off the field thinking you’re the Holy Ghost,” one of them said.

I don’t know if that’s the case or not, although I did hire a plumber once, also an ex-jock, who not only used to hear God’s voice but would also talk with him as they worked under my kitchen sink. The plumber had a bumper sticker on his pickup that said “Beam me up, Jesus.”

I never hired the man again, not because he was a friend of God but, if you’ll forgive the expression, he was slower than hell. At $69 an hour, he can talk to God on his own time.

I asked Mel Levine if, as Scribner suggests, he is a Godless, un-Biblical, socialist rabble-rouser who is marching his constituents down the spiral stairway to hot damnation. Mel smiled and said, “I don’t think so.”

Then I asked if he, like Scribner, had ever been told by God that he ought to enter politics. Mel thought about that for a moment and said, “Actually, no, it was a friend of mine from Berkeley.”

I don’t think God has ever even been to Berkeley but, of course, that’s a guess.

I also spoke with Fritz Coleman, the KNBC weather reporter, who is delighted that the Fritz Said campaign is so popular. “If Mondale had received this much notice, he’d have gotten more than three electoral votes,” Coleman said cheerfully.

He denies, however, that politics have anything to do with the promotional slogan, despite the contentions of Scribner’s advisers.

Just for good measure, Coleman also explains that his weather information comes not from God but from the National Weather Service.

“The only weather forecaster God has ever communicated with is Noah,” Fritz said. “I have to rely on satellites and computers.”

It surprised me at first that God would spend so much time fooling with an over-the-hill jock fundamentalist preacher in the 27th District, but then the other night it came to me that anyone responsible for the human race must have a terrific sense of humor.

He has.