Daily Caller columnist defends Robertson's remarks about Haiti: "The Haitian pact with the devil is historical fact"
January 20, 2010 4:44 pm ET by Media Matters staff
From Tommy De Seno's January 19 column on The Daily Caller:
Last week political correctness tried to kill history. No one from the media tried to stop the murder. Instead, most media outlets became willing accomplices to the crime.
When Pat Robertson said the Haitian slave rebels made a pact with the devil to throw off their French enslavers 200 years ago, media liberals drooled, believing they had caught a religious person saying something awful.
Of course there's one fact media liberals left out of their reports about Pat Robertson's statement: That it was, you know, true.
How can citing a historical fact possibly make someone like Robertson a bad guy? Is he supposed to ignore the history that happened? Cover it up? Pretend to change it?
[...]
Robertson didn't say God caused an earthquake. He said Haiti is "cursed," but not who is responsible for the curse.
Yet on NBC's Good Morning America, Claire Shipman and George Stephanopolous tag-teamed Robertson on a piece where they jumped right to the conclusion that Robertson alleged the earthquake was God taking revenge on Haiti for the 200 year old devil pact (that pact, by the way, expired in 1991).
The Haitian pact with the devil is historical fact. Whether there is a curse on Haiti because of the pact is a matter of religious interpretation. Why is the media pretending to be surprised that Robertson, a religious leader, speaking on a religious show, would offer a religious analysis?
Feel free to religiously disagree with Robertson's analysis, but let's not pretend his facts were historically inaccurate because they weren't.
Previously:
Sit around watching reruns of the 700 Club, so that now his brain has completely ceased to function?
These are people who recognize a contract with a fictional party as a historical fact.
I'm going to type up my contract with Daily Caller CEO Mr. Mythical P. Nonexistent, wherein he passes on ownership of the entire organization, including the bank accounts, to me, Col. Harlan Sanders, Esq. I hope Mr. DeSeno likes the clause that makes him my butler for life.
Could you please point me to any evidence, citation or factual account of this event? Can you tell me who (as in the specific individuals) made this pact? Do you have the wording of this pact?
The brief details given would say that in 1791 a 200 year pact was made. Well that would have meant that it would have expired in 1991, 19 years ago.
To sum it up, it is accused that unknown persons two centuries ago made a pact that expired two decades ago. Because of this pact many people have been injured and killed. The casualties include possible decadents of those pact makers (possible because we don't know who they were) along with many innocent persons who have immigrated to Haiti or were visiting Haiti. Note that many of the clergy were injured as well.
This entire scene is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. It is contrary to any known history. It is repugnant to human decency to tell victims who have lost there parents, children, siblings and friends that it is there fault because some person allegedly did something 200 years before you were born.
If you disagree, if you believe this is factual, please PRESENT THE FACTS. Please produce any evidence what so ever that this event took place. Please cite one source that isn't "I heard someone else say it" or "it is common knowledge that this happens".
This is why I love living in a free democracy. Fallacy withers in the light of day and the truth speaks for it self.
A NATION of people can't make a pact with the devil. And the sins of people 200 years ago are not going to continued to be asssessed upon the generations that are alive today.
It's a ridiculous assertion that the Haitian people today are being punished for the sins of people 206 years ago.
*I don't believe that the people of Haiti MADE a pact with the Devil just because they sacrificed an animal and prayed to the gods they worshipped to be released from slavery.
MY God doesn't treat people that way.
There are many versions of it on record as the organizing event that triggered the first wave of the slave revolt. There is historical controversy over the vodou ritual being a part of it, with many, many versions of who was there, and who did what, etc. There is even some controversy that the "meeting" ever took place at all. (some historical versions mention two meetings that may be conflated into a single meeting) At least one version includes some sort of "pact with the devil".
Start to get the picture?
Remember Dana Carvey's Church Lady? "Could it be......SATAN?"
Pat Robertson's embarrassing distraction is patently ridiculous on several levels already mentioned. Its importance, or lack thereof depends on different belief systems anyway.