In the dozens of stories I’ve read in the last 24 hours about Pat Robertson endorsing Giuliani, Walter Shapiro at Salon was the only person I saw who pointed out who introduced Robertson at yesterday’s press conference:
The Washington press conference announcing the Robertson endorsement was carefully constructed to make it all look like an alliance of strict-constructionist legal philosophers. Introducing the televangelist was not the campaign’s director of evangelical outreach, or a political figure known for sharing Robertson’s literal reading of the Book of Revelation. Instead the task fell to Ted Olson, the former solicitor general in the Bush Justice Department, a leading conservative legal thinker. The message was clear: This melding of minds was about putting more Antonin Scalias on the Supreme Court, not about Giuliani’s personal life and beliefs.
For as much as he inveighs against secularism, Pat Robertson has always managed to give to Caesar what is Caeser’s, going so far as to mount a serious run for the Presidency in 1988. Whatever his religious beliefs, Robertson also has a deep personal commitment to Republican electoral success. Southern Baptist leader Richard Land, who says he couldn’t possibly vote for the pro-choice, pro-gay rights Giuliani, puts it plainly, telling the Post, “Pat Robertson may have decided that Rudy Giuliani is the best way to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House.”
