Pat Robertson's Blowback

Reports Bloomberg news service:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may see an increase in popularity because of the death threat leveled by a U.S. television evangelist, according to Datanalisis, the country's No. 1 polling company.

Television evangelist Pat Robertson's calls for the U.S. to "assassinate" Chavez will lead more Venezuelans to believe his claims that the Bush administration is trying to kill him, said Luis Vicente Leon, director of Caracas-based Datanalisis. The additional support may help Chavez's ruling coalition extend its majority in congress in December elections.

"The evangelist's declarations are terrible for the U.S. in that they totally back up Chavez," Leon said in a telephone interview from Caracas. "It is absolutely going to have the opposite effect on Chavez than the U.S. wants. It's something that resonates with the country's poor."

Which of course leads me to figure Pat R. is in fact a paid, deep-cover operative for the Chavez regime (but then, I believe that Arianna Huffington is still working for the GOP; how else to explain the level of ridicule she has helped bring to "progressive" politics and/or the very existence of The Huffington Post?).

More on Chavez & Robertson here.

Original H&R post on topic here.