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American Morning
Pat Robertson, Man Who Made Christian Coalition into Political Force, Reckoned to be Now Leaving His Job
Aired December 06, 2001 - 08:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The man who made the Christian Coalition into a political force to be reckoned with is now leaving his job. The Reverend Pat Robertson, yesterday, announced his resignation, raising questions about whether the Coalition can survive without him. One of the things he supported, over the years, has been prayer in public school. That, of course, has become an extremely controversial issue since September 11.
A number of communities across the country have tried to incorporate a moment of prayer or reflection in their public schools. The Reverend Pat Robertson joins us now -- along with him, Barry Lynn with Americans United for Separation of Church and State -- welcome to the two of you.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: I must say in one of the strokes of genius among our bookers, we actually booked the two of you, Mr. Robertson...
PAT ROBERTSON: Yes.
ZAHN: ... before you made this announcement yesterday. And as it turns out, one of your chief critics over the years has been Barry Lynn. He claims that without your being at the Christian Coalition, the place basically is not going to survive.
Let me quote to you what he said in this morning's paper. Quote: "It cannot survive without the financial and political cloud of Robertson. This suggests that he is jumping off a ship that is sinking."
Talk to us, Reverend.
ROBERTSON: Barry...
ZAHN: What does that mean?
ROBERTSON: Barry is one of my great...
ZAHN: Is that true?
ROBERTSON: He is one of my greatest friends. He sued our school down here in Regent University, and we won decisively in the Supreme Court in Virginia, and I was so grateful for that decision. I sent him $100 to go have a nice dinner with his wife. He's just indefatigable, and he continues to lose, but he's basically a nice guy somewhere inside, but he loves to make digs at me.
ZAHN: But he makes a very serious...
ROBERTSON: Yes -- all right.
ZAHN: ... raises a very serious question, which is the long-time -- long-term viability of the Christian Coalition. Where does it go without you?
ROBERTSON: Well, you know, people do retire from every kind of business. I notice that Jerry Levin is stepping down from Time Warner here in a little while. And so, people do retire, and I'm pushing onto 72, and I think that it's time for me to step down. But I do think there are capable people. Roberta Combs is just a little dynamo. She's an extremely capable business woman and a great grass roots political organizer. So I think she can keep this thing going.
They've cut it down, in a sense, from a budgetary standpoint, so it's lean and mean, and I think it can survive. But I know I've been sort of the sparkplug over the years, and it came out of my presidential run in 1988, and I think it's been very effective.
ZAHN: But Barry Lynn -- and I'll let you reinforce this point -- has suggested that perhaps you've achieved everything your group could possibly achieve politically -- that you can never have more clout than the organization had under you.
ROBERTSON: Well, Paula, in a sense that's true. We set, back in 1990, a 10-year program. One was to see a conservative control of the United States Congress. We helped to do that; in 1994, that we would have a majority of the governors of the states in the hands of conservatives. We did that. It was one in 1996. And then the last thing was to have a born-again Christian in the White House, and that happened in 2000.
So I think in a sense we've accomplished the political goals we set out for, but there are many policy goals and public-issue goals that are still way before them. And like they say on the Archives Building: "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." You can't ever go to sleep and say, well, we've accomplished something, because there's always another election cycle, and there are always different policy issues to consider.
ZAHN: Barry Lynn, do you still stand by your judgments? Pat Robertson has said that the organization is in very capable hands now. It will go on. It will thrive. What do you think?
BARRY LYNN, AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: Well, I like that phrase, Paula, "lean and mean." It's certainly lean when you go from of budget of about $23 million down to $3 million. It's certainly getting leaner. And it also has been getting meaner, frankly. I think what the Christian Coalition could have done would be to elevate political debate and to really talk seriously about the moral dimensions of political issues.
Unfortunately, the Christian Coalition became a fairly mean- spirited operation. It would attack elected officials, doing these score cards at elections that sometimes -- that always represented Republicans in a more favorable light than Democrats. And sometimes, in fact, misstated, deliberately lied about the positions of the Democratic candidates, and I don't think that that elevated or sent heavenward the political agenda. I think it took it more toward the gutter.
But I do think that Pat Robertson has been a tremendously powerful individual political force. Without him, and without his capacity to be able to finance this organization in its darker days, its times of financial trouble, I just don't see how this is going to survive. When he and Ralph Reed lead the Coalition, politicians courted the Christian Coalition.
ZAHN: All right.
ROBERTSON: Yes.
LYNN: And now they tend to avoid it in no small measure, Paula, because I think Dr. Robertson's comments after 9/11 shocked so many Americans...
ZAHN: All right, all right.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: I don't want to get off on a complete tangent here, because we have the important issue of school prayer.
ROBERTSON: Sure.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: Reverend Robertson, do you want to just quickly...
ROBERTSON: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: ... that off and defend your turf...
ROBERTSON: Let me say something...
ZAHN: ... and then we really want to move on to school prayer.
ROBERTSON: On those score cards, they were vetted very carefully. The views and issues of these various candidates were put down essentially from their voting records in Congress or their stated public points of view. The Coalition wrote questionnaires to every single candidate and was very careful to put down what they had to say. The fact that some who are Democrats didn't show up too well in a Christian audience, it wasn't our fault, it was theirs. And the idea that the budget is not 3 million, Barry -- thank you very much. It's in the $6 to $8 million range. And I think last year, it had a surplus of $2 million, over and above its revenue, which was crowding 10. So your facts are wrong, which is often the case.
ZAHN: All right, gentlemen. We just have about 40 seconds left.
ROBERTSON: All right.
ZAHN: I want to give you 20 seconds apiece to move onto the issue of what we thought we were going to talk about today, because we didn't know, of course, Reverend, you were leaving the Christian Coalition.
Barry Lynn, who does it hurt to have a moment of silence in public schools?
LYNN: Well, I'll tell you, Paula, a moment of silence is my least troublesome thing right now. What I worry about is the thing that's been on Pat Robertson's agenda for many decades, and that is a return of government-promoted prayer to public schools through a constitutional amendment that would allow teachers to actually lead children in prayer.
I think parents have the right and the responsibility to choose what, if any, religious education their children receive. I don't think that the schools, I don't think politicians or, frankly, Pat Robertson ought to be in the position of directing what education our children receive about religion.
ZAHN: All right.
LYNN: That is where I draw the line.
ZAHN: Reverend Robertson...
ROBERTSON: OK.
ZAHN: ... we just have time for an equal response from you...
ROBERTSON: Paula...
ZAHN: ... and then we'll leave it there this morning.
ROBERTSON: Barry, to quote Ronald Reagan, "there you go again." I have never wanted teachers to lead prayers in the schools. We won -- the American Center for Law and Justice, and before that, my National Legal Foundation, won a landmark case. It's called Mergens v. Westside School District. Barry knows about it -- 7 to 2 Supreme Court decision that said students have the right to express their faith in the schools, and to evangelize in the schools. Justice Brennan wrote the decision.
And I believe in student-initiated prayer. I believe in the concept that the kids don't lose their citizenship when they go into the school. And we're not talking in any way about teachers leading some prescribed prayer, and I have not been pushing any such thing. But I do...
LYNN: Well, you still support that constitutional amendment to do just that, and until you say you don't support it, I'm going to have to assume that your record...
ZAHN: All right.
LYNN: ... does speak for itself.
ROBERTSON: I have drafted another one that says it a whole lot differently and have proposed it up there. I am not particularly in favor of the one that Ernie Ustid (ph) put out, because I think there's some language in there that I don't like.
ZAHN: Well, I'd love to have the two of you come back and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) issue.
ROBERTSON: I look forward to it, Paula.
ZAHN: Now that you have all of this free time, Reverend, Robertson -- you're going to be a retired man.
ROBERTSON: Thank you.
ZAHN: For some reason, I think this won't be the last we'll hear of you. Good luck to you in your new, what I assume (UNINTELIGIBLE).
ROBERTSON: Well, I will continue at CBM and Regent University. I have got a lot to do already.
ZAHN: Good luck to you.
ROBERTSON: Thank you.
ZAHN: Barry Lynn, as always good to have you on as well.
LYNN: Thank you.
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