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White House: Robertson words 'stunning'
by Mark Silva and updated at 3:45 pm EST
A senior advisor to President Barack Obama today said the Rev. Pat Robertson's remark that the earthquake-stricken Haitian people had made "a pact to the Devil'' long ago was "stunning.''
"I'm kind of speechless about that kind of remark," Valerie Jarrett, presidential advisor and friend, said in an appearance on ABC News' Good Morning America. "Our heart goes out to the people of Haiti. ... That's not the attitude that expresses the spirit of the president or the American people, so I thought it was a pretty stunning comment to make."
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said this today, when asked about Robertson's comment: "It never ceases to amaze that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid. But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity.''
"You know ... something happened a long time ago in Haiti. ... They got together and swore a pact to the Devil," Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club on Wednesday. ""They said, 'We will serve you if you get us free from the French.' True story...And so, the Devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out... You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another."
In a statement on its Web site, the Christian Broadcasting Network said Robertson was speaking objectively about Haiti's history that has led "countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed. "Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God's wrath,'' spokesman Chris Roslan says. "If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson's compassion for the people of Haiti is clear."
Clear as could be, right?
This isn't the first time Robertson has linked natural disasters and terrorism to the wrath of God. Ever-ready in the hyperbole department, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has suggested that Robertson is the devil.
The president, for his part, made something clear today:
" Few in the world have endured the hardships that you have known,'' Obama said in directing remarks from the White House to the Haitian people from the White House.
"Long before this tragedy, daily life itself was often a bitter struggle,'' Obama said. "And after suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must cause some to look up and ask, "Have we somehow been forsaken? ' To the people of Haiti, we say clearly, and with conviction, 'You will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten.'''
And Bill Clinton, the former president and special U.N. envoy to Haiti, says in his own Time magazine essay: "Haiti isn't doomed.''
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