Shouldn't we arrest Pat Robertson?

The Internet is quite abuzz with the news that Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, last night. It's pretty astounding. Here is the Venezuelan response. In it the vice president calls Robertson's words a "terrorist statement," which seems pretty reasonable to me. The State Department simply said that Robertson's remarks were "inappropriate." Ya think?

Why can't we arrest Pat Robertson? Is it legal to call for the assassination of anyone? You can't say he said it tongue and cheek, because humor to Pat Robertson probably means "Orange you glad I didn't say 'banana'?" If I had the audience that Robertson does and said, on the air, that we should assassinate a certain doofus leader who went to Yale but likes to pretend he's a cowboy, I'm pretty certain I'd be arrested. I'm just wondering if what Robertson said is legal.

By the way, if we go after Chavez, it would be for oil only. I don't have much of an opinion on Chavez, but when I was in Venezuela in 1999, he was pretty popular. He was also democratically elected, and he doesn't torture a lot of people. No more than we do, anyway. Venezuela doesn't fund any terrorist groups, at least none that we know of, and it doesn't have any territorial expansionist designs. Chavez, however, is trying to extricate his country's dependence on the United States as a major buyer of oil, of which Venezuela has plenty. That's the only problem the Administration has with him. I'll repeat that: That's the only problem the Administration has with him. He doesn't want to sell all his oil to the U.S. Whether he's a bad guy or not, that's the only reason we would go to war with Venezuela.

Pat Robertson needs to be arrested. When I'm dictator, by the way, churches will lose their tax-exempt status. Then they support any stupid candidate they want.