More on Pat

More on Pat from the Chimp:

While the Media Research Center's Brent Baker claimed that Robertson's political clout is "waning," and Fox News' Brit Hume maintained that Robertson had "no clout with the Bush Administration," Senator James M. Inhofe, the Republican from Oklahoma who heads up the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was looking out for the televangelist's business interests.

In August, Sen. Inhofe inserted $10.8 million into the $286 billion transportation bill; money that will directly enhance the Reverend's bottom line. The funds -- $5.8 million of which came through Sen. Inhofe's initiative -- was earmarked "to help build an interchange along Interstate 64 near the Christian Broadcasting Network [CBN]," the Virginian-Pilot reported in mid-September."Building the interchange would help a project planned by CBN to build homes, shops and commercial space on about 430 acres of undeveloped land in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach that the network owns adjacent to the interstate," the Virginian-Pilot reported. "Lowell W. Morse, president of Morse and Associates Inc., a firm hired by CBN to help develop the project, has said the investment could hit $300 million."

While Sen. Inhofe was looking after the Rev. Robertson's financial interests, the Christian Coalition, the organization founded by Robertson in 1989, was on the edge of sinking into history. The organization is a long way from its salad days in the mid-1990s when the politically savvy Ralph Reed ran the ship as the CC's executive director."In 1994 alone," TheSlate.com recently reported, "the group mailed 30 million postcards opposing President Clinton's sweeping health-care proposal and made more than 20,000 phone calls to urge support for the balanced budget amendment -- two issues that helped Republicans win control of Congress that year."Now, the organization is suffering from a series of financial blows, including a suit against filed in June, by Pitney Bowes for $13,649 in unpaid postage; the suit was recently settled out of court. The Christian Coalition is also feeling the back draft from a racial discrimination suit filed by several of its black employees, all of which has left it behind such powerhouse conservative Christian operations as Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins' Family Research Council.

OBI has had a controversial history: In 1996, the Norfolk, Va.-based Virginia-Pilot reported that two pilots hired by OBI to fly humanitarian aid to Zaire two years earlier were used to benefit Robertson's diamond mining operations. Chief pilot Robert Hinkle, maintained that during his six months tenure flying for Operation Blessing, only one or two of more than 40 flights were for humanitarian purposes -- the rest carried mining equipment. OBI resources were being diverted to support the African Development Co., a private corporation run by Robertson. At the time, Robertson also had a special relationship with Zaire's late dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko

Christianity Today's Ted Olsen recently wrote that Robertson's political power and influence within the evangelical movement is largely dependent on his perpetual presence on television and in that regard, there is no end in sight. Olsen explained: "In 1988, Robertson sold the Family Network to Fox for $1.9 billion," eleven years after he "launched" the channel "through the donations of viewers who had been promised a Christian alternative to 'secular' television."

According to Olsen, the Christian Broadcasting Network received $136 million, Robertson's Regent University got $148 million, Robertson "personally received $19 million, and the rest went to the Robertson Charitable Remainder Trust, which will fund CBN after Robertson and his wife die."The kicker in the deal: "Fox Family was required to air The 700 Club three times a day... and, if Fox sold the network, the obligation to air The 700 Club had to be part of that deal, too." (The Walt Disney Company bought the network from Fox in 2001 for $3 billion and $2.3 billion in debt, Olsen reported.)In recent years, with the 700 Club airing as many as five times a day, "Donations have increased from $84 million in 1998, the year of the sale, to $132.1 million in 2004." The Virginian-Pilot's religion reporter Steven Vegh, recently reported that donations had risen from only a third of CBN's 1997 revenue, to 71 percent of its 2004 total.

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