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Original Source: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everybody.
Tonight, surrendering America. The United States is making it difficult for our newest immigrants to assimilate into our society by not requiring any English at all. We'll have that special report.
Also tonight, the Bush administration announces new fuel efficiency standards for cars that critics say will do nothing to help Americans with today's rising high cost of gasoline. Americans are asking themselves if Washington has any idea of how to bring down soaring energy costs.
And scientists who want to reintroduce massive wild mammals back to our Great Plains. Should animals that once roamed America -- more than 10,000 years ago, in fact -- be allowed to return, or at least their descendants? We'll have that proposal and a debate on the re- wilding of America.
We begin tonight with what could be called an evangelical fatwa from religious broadcaster and former U.S. presidential candidate Pat Robertson. Robertson, a Christian conservative, is calling upon the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Robertson, like many in the country, says Chavez has become a threat to the United States. But Robertson's call to kill Chavez is being denounced in some quarters as another hateful statement from a controversial public figure.
Will American religious leaders condemn this outrageous statement? We'll hear tonight from Reverend Jesse Jackson and Reverend Ted Haggard, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
But first, Lucia Newman reports tonight from Havana, Cuba, where Hugo Chavez was visiting today. And Kitty Pilgrims reports on Robertson's history of outrageous pronouncements.
Kitty Pilgrim begins our coverage. Kitty?
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Government and religious figures today came out with a firestorm of reaction, and here is the comment that sparked the furor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PAT ROBERTSON, "THE 700 CLUB": We have the ability to take him out. And I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.
PILGRIM (voice over): Today, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld reacted.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Certainly it's against the law. Our department doesn't do that type of thing. He's a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time.
PILGRIM: The State Department was quick to say his remarks don't represent the views of the United States.
SEAN MCCORMACK, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: These comments are inappropriate. They do not represent the policy of the United States. And I would add that any accusations or any idea that we're planning to take hostile action against Venezuela or the Venezuelan government, any ideas in that regard are totally without fact and baseless.
PILGRIM: This is not the first time the State Department has had to react to Robertson, who zinged the State Department itself in 2003, saying - quote -- "Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up."
RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: I think the very idea, though, is despicable.
PILGRIM: Porter Bibb has been researching Robertson for years, with the thought of writing a book.
PORTER BIBB, MEDIATECH CAPITAL PARTNERS: He mixes politics, religion and business. He's an exceptionally diverse and very powerful man whose daily television program reaches over a million viewers every day.
PILGRIM: Some of Robertson's other statements have drawn public outcry, such as this at the 1992 Republican convention: "Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Well, today some Christian leaders were in the tough position of trying to reconcile the Sixth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," with Robertson's comments. Lou.
DOBBS: There is a further, it seems to me, controversy brewing here. And that is that the Bush administration, the United States government, is not outright condemning these comments. He certainly has the right as an American to say whatever he wishes, but this government has a responsibility to say this is beyond the pale.
PILGRIM: Everyone kept distancing themselves, very delicately saying he's a private citizen.
DOBBS: And he is also an important part of the president's electoral base. Kitty Pilgrim. Thank you.
The Venezuelan government tonight, however, wasting no time in strongly condemning Pat Robertson's call to kill their president, urging the Bush administration to condemn Robertson's statements as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BERNARDO ALVAREZ HERRERA, VENEZUELAN AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: The United States must not permit its citizen to use its territory and air waves to incite terrorism abroad and the murder of a democratically elected president. Venezuela demands that the U.S. abides by the international and domestic law and respect our country and its president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: And as I said, the Bush administration so far has failed to strongly condemn Pat Robertson's words calling for the killing of Venezuelan President Chavez.
Hugo Chavez's radical nationalist regime, without question, fueled by billions in oil profits, is gaining power and influence in Latin America, and working against U.S. interests, thwarting U.S. efforts, in fact, to control the illegal drug crisis in this hemisphere. And it is helping prop up the communist regime of Cuba's Fidel Castro. The United States has been concerned about Chavez's growing power for some time.
Lucia Newman is live tonight in Havana. Lucia?
LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVAN BUREAU CHIEF: Lou, good evening.
Well, President Chavez was just here. He left a short while ago after spending four days here in Cuba, side by side with President Fidel Castro. But before he left, he was asked at the airport about what he thought about Pat Robertson's comment, and unlike his vice president back in Caracas, he tried to downplay it.
He said that he was in Cuba to talk about life, not about death. Let's hear what else he had to say in response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I don't know who that person is. I don't know him. And as far as his opinion of me goes, I couldn't care less.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWMAN: Now, President Chavez actually did something he'd never done before, before leaving for Jamaica. He offered an olive branch to the American people. In fact, he said he would use some of that enormous petrol and oil money that he has to sell oil to the Americans, to the underprivileged Americans, bypassing the middle man, he said -- that is, the U.S. oil companies -- to save them money.
Now, on the other hand, he's been far from conciliatory during his visit here to Cuba towards the U.S. administration.
In fact, on Sunday, Lou, he said -- and I'm quoting him -- "It's the Americans who are the destabilizers. It is Mr. Warlord" -- referring to President George Bush -- "who is the real destabilizer not only of Latin America, but of the world."
And so the war of words continues -- Lou.
DOBBS: Words, indeed. Lucia, did President Chavez say how he would get that oil to -- what was the word -- how did he describe those he was going to get the oil, the energy to?
NEWMAN: Yes. It was the underprivileged Americans, people without enough money who couldn't afford to pay the high oil prices that the American oil companies were charging at the gas stations. That's what he said.
But he didn't give too many details. In fact, I had the impression he almost thought of it today as he was leaving Cuba. Lou.
DOBBS: Well, of course, Lucia, we'll depend upon you to bring about greater details on Hugo Chavez's generous offer to America. Thank you very much.
NEWMAN: Absolutely.
DOBBS: Lucia Newman reporting from Havana.
Later here, I'll be joined by Reverend Jesse Jackson and...
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