After an earth­quake shook the island of Haiti recently, many global lead­ers came together to pledge sup­port for the coun­try that had just been destroyed by a nat­ural disaster.

Rush Limbaugh, the infa­mous out­spo­ken con­ser­v­a­tive radio host, and Pat Robertson, the TV evan­ge­list, have made names for them­selves by say­ing what oth­ers won’t or, in this case, what no else could even think. They have become car­i­ca­tures for their causes and draw out a shock value reac­tion from the lis­ten­ing public.

While the rest of the world was respond­ing and reach­ing out to this coun­try in need, the above men­tioned men were mak­ing state­ments that were so atro­cious that even those that nor­mally agree with them had to take a step back. Rush Limbaugh has asked his lis­ten­ers not to donate any money to the cause because he thinks the United States has already done enough for Haitians. Pat Robertson thinks that this is a “bless­ing in dis­guise” and said that it is the result of “[Haiti] mak­ing a pact with the devil.”

Pat Robertson, by title, is sup­posed to be a “rev­erend” and a ser­vant of God. Is this how a rev­erend is sup­posed to act? I seri­ously hope not.

Robertson lit­er­ally believes that the peo­ple of Haiti made a deal with the Devil to get free from the con­trol of the French. Not only does this arrange­ment not make sense meta­phys­i­cally, but also this thought insin­u­ates that Haitians are get­ting what they deserve for this “deal with the man downstairs.”

It seems that because he has the title of a reli­gious man, he can get away with say­ing any­thing he pleases. If any seri­ous com­men­ta­tor made such a remark, there would be a firestorm of hate mail and prob­a­bly shaky prospects regard­ing their future employment.

Pat Robertson can say what he likes. The prob­lem though is that he is given media time. He is a founder of the 700 Club and preaches this hatred and garbage to an audi­ence of pri­mar­ily Christian right-viewers. Why, when he makes a state­ment like this, are all of the major net­works giv­ing him air time?

Keith Olbermann put it the best that I have heard it said in a recent seg­ment of “Quick Comment” on his nightly show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”

“Sir, because of your tone-deafness and delight in human mis­ery and your drip­ping self-satisfied holier than thou senile crap, I am now like­lier to believe you are the devil,” said Olbermann.

Is a reac­tion like this nec­es­sary? I think so. Politics should be put aside in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions. We saw it hap­pen on September 11, 2001, and we have seen it for the most part with the cur­rent Haiti dis­as­ter. Certain men, though, have trou­ble for­get­ting pol­i­tics and embrac­ing human sym­pa­thy in a time of need.