Bob Barr

It's That Time, Robertson: Exit the Stage

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

January 11, 2006

Sonny Bono had it. So did Ronald Reagan. And Charlton Heston. Pat Robertson does not. Timing — it can elevate an otherwise ordinary act or phrase to immortality. It can also render an otherwise positive action into a joke.

I used to marvel at the way Reagan, whether as governor of California or president of the United States, could disarm his detractors or fend off criticism with a simple joke at just the right time, delivered in just the right tone. Bono, as a member of Congress elected at the same time as I and many other Republicans in the fall of 1994, quickly proved to us, his colleagues, why he had been such a successful actor and comedian. He possessed an impeccable sense of timing. On more than one occasion, for example, as we in the Republican caucus were engaged in a particularly contentious private meeting, with tempers flaring, Bono would step to a microphone and deliver a brief, joke-laced monologue to break an impasse and cool things down. Often, his vehicle would be a hilarious and self-deprecating story about him or his former wife, Cher.

I have been fortunate during my career to have known several people like Bono. People like Charlton Heston, who traveled several times to my congressional district in Georgia to campaign in my behalf. Watching Heston charm a crowd — large or intimate — was something I marveled at while at his side.

Others possessed of this gift of timing have shone brightly in their respective fields of endeavor. As a student at the University of Southern California, watching "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson's quips provided me countless hours of excuses for not studying. The sense of timing he brought to the entertainment business reflected much more than just good joke writers; it reflected a conscious and well-honed sense of the human condition and of our culture.

Something else that all these public figures — save Bono, whose unexpected and untimely death by accident in early 1998 cut short a brilliant career as a public servant — had in common is that they each knew when to exit the stage. Each sensed when he had passed his prime; when the ravages of time or malady had taken from them their sharp edge and their essential ability to know what to say, when to say it, and how to deliver a punch line. Reagan, Carson and Heston exited the stage of their public lives in their prime.

The onset of Alzheimer's disease caused Reagan to declare in November 1994 that he would no longer be participating in public events; he preferred instead to "begin the journey" that would lead him into the "sunset" of his life in private. He gave us the chance to remember him as the vibrant president he was, rather than as the broken man Alzheimer's inevitably renders those afflicted with it. Heston, one of Reagan's fellow actors, declared in a videotaped message in August 2002 that the early signs of Alzheimer's would cause him to severely curtail his public appearances. His leadership of the National Rifle Association, a job that he carried out with great poise, ceased with the onset of the dreadful disease. He, too, left the stage with dignity.

Carson hosted the "Tonight Show" for 30 years, beginning in 1962. When he stepped down in 1992, it was not because of disease (although emphysema would claim him 13 years later). He stepped down because he sensed he had reached his prime.

This brings us to the sorry state of Pat Robertson. In many respects an organizational genius, a truly gifted orator and a dedicated preacher, Robertson has failed to heed the example of such outstanding public figures as Reagan, Heston and Carson, and has overstayed his welcome. His pronouncements from the pulpit of his electronic ministry, "The 700 Club" — in August calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and just last week labeling the severe stroke that has felled Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as God's vengeance for the political leader's move to pull back from the Gaza — illustrate graphically why one hallmark of true leadership is knowing when to remain silent and leave the podium. It is an attribute the Virginia minister clearly does not possess.

While Robertson continues to enjoy a significant following as a televangelist, rendering public statements that require massive, post-utterance explanation, and which cause well-deserved ridicule around the world, truly cannot represent a positive achievement for all he has worked for over the decades. Yet, he continues to do just this, and inevitably diminishes his legacy.

One is reminded of the words of Kenny Rogers' hit song "The Gambler": "You've got to . . . know when to fold 'em; know when to walk away." Sadly, Pat Robertson has not learned that lesson.

Mr. Barr occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union Foundation.