‘Scamsters in religious garb quoting the Bible’

If you can’t watch that video, that’s Pat Robertson, saying this:

Ladies and gentlemen, beware of these scamsters. Especially scamsters in religious garb, quoting the Bible. I mean, run from them. They’re all over the place.

And yes, that’s the same Pat Robertson.

The Rev. Marian Gordon “Pat” Robertson, CEO of the Christian Broadcasting Network, host of The 700 Club, peddler of dubious “sentergistic” health shakes, second-place finisher in the 1988 Republican caucuses in Iowa, deflector of hurricanes and thrift-store exorcist.

That Pat Robertson.

But the man can leg-press 2,000 pounds!

* * * * * * * * *

Speaking of Bible-quoting scamsters in religious garb …

Liberty Counsel — the right-wing, anti-gay lobby associated with Jerry Falwell’s law school — is planning a feature film.

It’s a musical.

It’s a musical starring Erik Estrada.

Feel free to provide your own CHiPs jokes in comments. Tribal bonus points for Cross-and-the-Switchblade jokes.

* * * * * * * * *

Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll spoke at a Faith and Freedom Coalition rally in 2011, firing up the crowd with the kind of talk Ralph Reed’s latest religious-right group loves to hear:

Ladies and gentlemen, Christianity is in a fight and it is one of the greatest trials we have seen in modern times. Without a doubt, America and her people are in grave need of prayer, divine guidance, protection, to have good, solid Christians to step up and lead this country on a proper moral path. I firmly believe that if we magnify God, our problems will be minimized.

Unfortunately, one problem that hasn’t been minimized is that of a lieutenant governor “abruptly resign[ing] amid law enforcement questions about a Florida Internet sweepstakes company at the center of a nationwide criminal investigation.”

* * * * * * * * *

Regarding folks like Pat Robertson or Liberty Counsel or Ralph Reed, I think evangelicals need to listen to what Conor Friedersdorf is saying to his Republican Party and apply the lessons to evangelicalism. Friedersdorf’s Atlantic column earlier this week was titled, “The GOP Can’t Reach Beyond Its Base Without Confronting Its Hucksters.” It’s long, but it builds up to this:

Some conservatives who share my critiques are rationally afraid to speak up. Others have long thought that I overemphasize how much the unethical behavior of guys like Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, who broadcast months of Glenn Beck chalkboard rants, and all the other hucksters matter — that they’re best ignored as fights not worth picking. The latter position, while honestly held, grows less plausible with every political battle characterized by a conservative information disadvantage, an inability to reach independents, the rise of huckster politicians like Herman Cain and Donald Trump, and a focus ontotally fake controversies. An all-out attack on the hucksters is as necessary now as it was at the end of the Bush Administration, the failures of which were partly explained by a conservative echo chamber. But most conservatives who’d never dream of conducting themselves as dishonorably as the worst pundits and entertainers still dread picking that necessary fight. How do they explain the RNC’s observation that “we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue”?