OK everybody, calm down. Take a deep breath and count to ten. The Pat Robertson fiasco is nothing to get so upset about. If you really think about it, maybe there is a bit of truth in the remarks of Preacher Pat. It would be cheaper and save lives if the U.S. used assassination to eliminate someone every time that we got mad at them.

We should call this new approach to Foreign Relations our Bargain Basement Foreign Policy. OOP's, this is not a new policy. This is the old policy that we have been following for many years. If assassination is the norm then why did so many seem shocked at Pat's statement. Could it be that, as a nation, we have been in denial for a long time?

Here is the list of assassination attempts as compiled by historian William Blum.[1]

Of course the official explanation for all of these assassination attempts is that we didn't really do it, the intelligence was wrong, my wife made me do it, the dog ate my homework, I don't remember anything, it's just a vicious Communist plot, it happened when the Democrats were in power, it happened when the Republicans were in power...

So maybe Preacher Pat did all of us a big favor. He should receive the praise of a grateful nation. His statements could chip away at the denial that most of us are wallowing in. Anyone with enough smarts to not have to call tech support when they want to use a stapler, should finally get it. We are a nation that has relied on assassination as an integral part of our foreign policy. Like it or not, that's the way it is. Preacher Pat was right.

Note:

[1]. The list of assassination plots was taken from "Killing Hope" by William Blum.