More stupid petition tricks, and a logo

LeftAction gets to have an exciting two consecutive entries in The Stupid Files for their pointless petitions. Today, LeftAction is calling out Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson has said plenty of stupid and vile things over the years. He was a major apologist for Charles Taylor, the murderous dictator of Liberia and his business partner. His book The New World Order was a patchwork of recycled anti-Semitic conspiracy nonsense.* In 2005, he suggested that it would be okay for the US to assassinate Hugo Chavez. In 2006, while promoting his "Age-Defying energy shake," he claimed to be able to leg press 2000 pounds, an achievement that would have made the septuagenarian by far the the strongest person in the world. In 2010, he explained that the entire country of Haiti was cursed because they had signed a pact with the devil to gain independence. In 2011, he recommended a man divorce his Alzheimer wife and marry his girlfriend. And so on.

What has LeftAction upset today are comments Robertson made concerning AIDS on his Monday show. After explaining that gays have pushed through laws that make it illegal to talk about the disease, he went on to tell his views that gay men in San Francisco wear infected rings with little blades on the inside so they can infect people just by shaking hands with them. LeftAction says enough is enough. They want us to sign their petition demanding The Christian Broadcasting Network take Robertson off the air.

This might sound a little less stupid than their Palin petition. But it's not, and even they admit it. Robertson is CBN. He founded the network and his show is the mainstay of their programming. Sure, the man is 83 and should turn over hosting the show to someone younger, but no liberal petition is going to force him to do that. Demonizing gays and making up stories about people his prime audience hate isn't going to hurt him. Among his viewership, the divorce recommendation was far more damaging.

Asking Robertson to fire himself over something that isn't offensive to his viewers is just plain stupid. Signing a petition asking a petition asking him to do so is a waste of time.

* In his defense on this one, he probably didn't have a clue what the books he quoted meant.