AP:
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; 4:02 PM
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson insisted Wednesday that he did not call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, despite comments broadcast on his program two days earlier.
“I didn’t say ‘assassination,'” Robertson said Wednesday on his Christian Broadcast Network show “The 700 Club” about remarks reported by The Associated Press and other media outlets.
“I said our special forces should ‘take him out.’ ‘Take him out’ could be a number of things including kidnapping.
“There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time.”
But a video of Monday’s telecast shows that Robertson’s exact words were: “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. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”
