Robertson’s Notions

If we chose our Presidents sheerly on the basis of their imaginative powers, Pat Robertson would be leading the pack of Republican contenders.

First the former television evangelist claimed that, through prayer, he diverted a hurricane from the Virginia coast. Then he briefly charged that he had proof that the Soviets left missiles in Cuba after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, backing down only in the face of firm Reagan Administration denials. Next Robertson charged that somebody --maybe his rival, Vice President George Bush--deliberately timed the disclosures of the sexual peccadilloes of Jimmy Swaggart, another popular TV preacher, to embarrass Robertson before the Super Tuesday primaries March 8.

How was that again? Are we to believe that Bush, pulling strings behind the scenes, got Swaggart’s accuser, New Orleans minister Marvin Gorman, to snitch on Swaggart’s motel meeting with a known lady of easy virtue, hoping that the resulting scandal would hurt Robertson in the Deep South because he and Swaggart once followed the same fire-and-brimstone trade? Whew. Doesn’t sound like the Republicans to us--more like Machiavelli.

We were still puzzling over the Bush-Swaggart-Robertson connection when Robertson landed another bombshell Wednesday. He claimed that his Christian Broadcasting Network once knew the whereabouts of American hostages in Lebanon “and they could have been freed.” Our first impulse was, like White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, to snap back with a wisecrack: So why didn’t you tell anybody, Pat?

But, on reflection, that would be letting this irresponsible demagogue off too lightly. He seems to have blurted out this wild claim without any thought as to what effect it might have on the families of the American hostages. How cruel of him to raise their hopes, if only for a few minutes, when in fact all that his broadcasters knew was that the hostages were probably somewhere in West Beirut. A full-dress apology and a vow of silence should be in order, but that is not in Robertson’s character: He will probably move on to some new charge, trailing staff clarifications in his wake.

The only comfort that we can offer Robertson-watchers is that come Super Tuesday, March 8,he may get his comeuppance in a court of law. The same day on which the other presidential candidates tend to Super Tuesday’s 17 primaries, Robertson’s libel suit against former Rep. Paul N. McCloskey is scheduled to go to trial in Washington. The suit arose over another of Robertson’s boasts--that he was a Korean War combat veteran. McCloskey, another Marine aboard Robertson’s troopship, has said that Robertson ducked combat altogether by having his father, then a U.S. senator, intervene to keep him first in Japan and then at division headquarters, far from the war. With any luck the truth will out. Imagine that.