Pat Robertson endorsed Giuliani for president

This is just incredible. From The New York Times:

Rudolph W. Giuliani scored a big coup today by winning the support of Pat Robertson, who, as one of the nation’s best-known televangelists, could help Mr. Giuliani reassure Republican voters who have been wary of his support for abortion rights.

Mr. Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, said in endorsing Mr. Giuliani in Washington, that he believes “the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the blood lust of Islamic terrorists” and praised Mr. Giuliani as a “true fiscal conservative.”

While Mr. Robertson did not mention Mr. Giuliani’s support of abortion rights, he said approvingly that Mr. Giuliani has “has assured the American people that his choices for judicial appointments will be men and women who share the judicial philosophy of John Roberts and Antonin Scalia,” who have argued against Roe v. Wade.

The endorsement comes just a month after a coalition of other prominent Christian conservatives threatened to back a third-party candidate if Mr. Giuliani were to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. Winning the support of Mr. Roberston could not only help Mr. Giuliani present himself as a viable candidate to the Christian right, but could also help him improve his standing in Iowa: Mr. Roberston finished second in the Iowa caucuses during his own run for president in 1988.

Now that "other prominent Christian conservatives" was none other than James Dobson and his Focus on the Family coalition. Dobson doesn't like Giuliani's campaign for two possible reasons. The first, of course, would be Giuliani's pro-abortion stance before he decided to run for president. The second reason could be that a Giuliani presidency could reduce Dobson's political power to shape social issues to his extremist ideology. Dobson may feel that a Giuliani administration may only give lip service to the Religious Right, rather than trying to push through the socially conservative legislation that Dobson supports. So we get all this talk from Dobson about bolting from the GOP if Giuliani is nominated for the GOP presidential candidacy.

Enter Pat Robertson. Robertson is the wackiest of the wackos on the Religious Right. And yet, here is Pat Robertson endorsing Rudy Giuliani for the GOP presidential candidate. Are we going to see a split in the Religious Right's vote now, with one part of the Religious Right electorate supporting Dobson's third party candidate, and the other part supporting Robertson and Giuliani? It is like we're seeing a complete breakdown in the Religious Right as to who to select among a set of bad candidates that really don't support their extreme religiously social agenda--and this is after they have had one of their own occupying the White House in George W. Bush.

This is getting to be fun.