When the Air Force reversed its position and allowed enlistees to omit “so help me God” from their oath of enlistment, Pat Robertson had this response:

There’s a left-wing radical named Mickey Weinstein who has got a group about people against religion or whatever he calls it, and he has just terrorized the armed forces. You think you’re supposed to be tough, you’re supposed to defend us, and you got one little Jewish radical who is scaring the pants off of you…

It’s just crazy. What is wrong with the Air Force? How can they fly the bombers to defend us if they cave to one little guy?

Robertson appears to believe the requirement of the oath should have remained, a position not joined by many others. To be accurate, too, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein wasn’t responsible for the change. The American Humanist Association made the complaint, not Weinstein (though, to be fair, Weinstein did take credit for it).

Many have focused on Robertson’s use of the words “little Jewish radical.” Absent that phrase, Robertson’s criticism is little different than that offered by many others (including members of the US Congress) who have said the Air Force has too frequently capitulated to Weinstein’s empty threats and bloviating.

Weinstein, too, called the statement a “verbal attack” — a hypocritically thin-skinned pout given Weinstein’s own history of verbal maltreatment.  Worse, Weinstein then called Robertson a “coward,” saying Robertson didn’t serve in combat when he was a Marine.  Weinstein noted his own service in the Air Force — but conveniently omitted his own record.  According to his autobiography, the closest thing Weinstein saw to combat was when he threatened to sue the US Air Force if it didn’t let him out of the service.

Weinstein said Robertson was “anti-Semitic.”  Would Robertson’s monologue have been less offensive if he’d said Weinstein was a “Jewish monster” instead of “Jewish radical?”

After all, Weinstein let loose an entire op-ed railing against “Christian monsters” and has targeted individuals with the same vitriol.  If calling someone a “Jewish radical” is anti-Semitic, what is calling someone a “Christian monster?”

Somehow, though, Mikey Weinstein gets a pass from his atheist and secularist supporters, who apparently value attacks on Christianity higher than the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty.

See the entirety of Robertson’s monologue here.

Also at MSNBC and RawStory.

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