Galactically vile Christian cleric Pat Robertson told his CBN viewers today that Haitians are "cursed" because their ancestors "swore a pact with the devil" to liberate themselves from the French in 1804. "True story."

What else would he say? Robertson can't let human suffering pass without finding a way to insinuate that God did it deliberately because he hates gay people, black people, Catholics, or whatever other poor dying sap he can find to cruelly mock and use to his own political and fundraising advantage.

In the wake of 9/11, he hosted Jerry Falwell on his show, The 700 Club, to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ by saying "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way" bore responsibility for the attacks and resulting deaths. Robertson nodded in agreement at his guest, adding that "we have sinned against Almighty God, at the highest level of our government, we've stuck our finger in your eye.... The Supreme Court has insulted you over and over again, Lord. They've taken your Bible away from the schools. They've forbidden little children to pray. They've taken the knowledge of God as best they can, and organizations have come into court to take the knowledge of God out of the public square of America."

After Katrina, Robertson consulted his soothsaying cross and determined that God killed 1,000 or so poor black people because they got too many abortions: "Have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected in some way?" He went on to hope that the confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice to the Supreme Court could forestall further carnage.

Pat Robertson is as hateful and seized by superstition as any Taliban mullah with a knot in his forehead from obsessively banging it into a prayer mat. The motivation for this latest proclamation is no doubt the fact that about half the people in Haiti practice voodoo, an amalgam of Catholicism and African animism that dates to the importation of West African slaves there in the 16th century, and that was common to the slaves who whose uprising against their French owners eventually became the Haitian Revolution. For a more nuanced explication Haiti's Satanic provenance—"Government Of The Devil, By The Devil, And For The Devil"—go here.

So because the people of Haiti practice a different religion from Robertson—about which everything he knows he learned from watching The Serpent and the Rainbow—it follows that their historic liberation in a bloody war must have been the result of a negotiation with a malevolent supernatural being who intervenes in worldly affairs. And every tragedy that has befallen their ancestors since has been deliberately directed at them by an all-powerful and loving god who wants to kill them, repeatedly, because they gained freedom by striking a deal with his enemy.

Who's the fucking witch doctor?

UPDATE: A spokesman for Robertson e-mailed Politico's Ben Smith to helpfully explain that "countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries...believe the country is cursed," so Robertson was relying on sound scholarly research in tracing the cataclysmic earthquake to a well-documented pact with Satan that the people of Haiti entered into at the turn of the 19th century.

On today's The 700 Club, during a segment about the devastation, suffering and humanitarian effort that is needed in Haiti, Dr. Robertson also spoke about Haiti's history. His comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the country, 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. If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson's compassion for the people of Haiti is clear. He called for prayer for them. His humanitarian arm has been working to help thousands of people in Haiti over the last year, and they are currently launching a major relief and recovery effort to help the victims of this disaster. They have sent a shipment of millions of dollars worth of medications that is now in Haiti, and their disaster team leaders are expected to arrive tomorrow and begin operations to ease the suffering.

[Via Politico.]