Retreat On Robertson: FEMA Fumbles On Operation Blessing
Word is slowly getting out about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) promotion of the Pat Robertson-owned charity Operation Blessing.
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck, FEMA issued a list of relief organizations that were accepting donations to help the victims. Robertson critics were surprised to see Operation Blessing listed second. The list was duly reprinted in newspapers nationwide, and was featured prominently on FEMA’s website.
Several progressive bloggers went on the attack, and the story slowly filtered into the mainstream media. New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez did a piece Sept. 6, noting that Robertson used the charity to ferry diamond-mining equipment in and out of Zaire in the mid 1990s.
Gonzalez examined Operation Blessing’s financial records and was surprised at what he saw. “The biggest single U.S. recipient of the charity’s largess, according to its latest financial report, was Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network,” he wrote. “It received $885,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2004.”
Gonzalez noted that “Robertson uses that Christian network for some markedly unchristian purposes,” pointing out his association with dictators like Charles Taylor in Liberia.
The next day, The Nation magazine posted a column about Operation Blessing on its website. The piece by Max Blumenthal brought up the Africa charges again but also scored Robertson’s “700 Club” for airing biased reports critical of the hurricane victims struck in the New Orleans Convention Center.
Reported Blumenthal, “Now, as fallout from the President’s handling of Hurricane Katrina threatens to derail the GOP’s long-term agenda, Robertson is back at the plate for Bush, echoing the White House’s line that state and local authorities – and even the disaster victims themselves – are to blame for the tragedy engulfing New Orleans. The September 5 edition of The 700 Club included a report by Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent Gary Lane from outside the ruined New Orleans Convention Center, which had housed mostly impoverished black disaster victims throughout the weekend. ‘A number of possessions left behind suggest the mindset of some of the evacuees,’ Lane said. ‘They include this voodoo cup with the saying, “May the curse be with you.”‘ A shot of a plastic souvenir cup from one of New Orleans’s countless trinket shops appeared on the screen.”
Blumenthal noted that Operation Blessing President Bill Horan had been interviewed on “The 700 Club.” During the report, Horan discussed his group’s activities in Biloxi, Miss., and Houston – but not New Orleans. Blumenthal charged that Operation Blessing planned to avoid the New Orleans victims “like the plague.”
Horan also appealed for cash, which led Blumenthal to conclude, “The Bush Administration, through FEMA, is doing its best to insure that Pat Robertson is getting that cash just as quickly as humanly possible.”
But word may be getting out about Operation Blessing’s checkered past. FEMA’s website is now running a redesigned page that no longer contains references to Operation Blessing. However, a prominent reference to the group still exists on FEMA’s Spanish-language site.