Pat Robertson > shithouse rat = true.

Knowing what you know about Pat Robertson's bizarre view of divine intervention -- to wit, God will not intervene to save the lives of thousands of Asian tsunami victims, but will cause an earthquake to kill a whole bunch of gay people -- you would have to conclude that either a) God is kind of a dick, or b) Pat Robertson is. Having received all kinds of guidance, blessings and forgiveness from God, while never having received any of those things from Pat Robertson, I'm going to give God a pass and go with b).

So that opens up a new pair of choices: Pat Robertson is either a) as utter and complete a shyster as there has ever been, or b) so crazy that shithouse rats cross to the other side of the street when they see him. That one I'm not quite as confident about, but I can tell you I'm leaning a lot more toward b) after Patsy's recent statement:

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday.

"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Yes, if you're scoring at home, Pat Robertson just said federal judges are more dangerous than Osama bin Laden. Now, back during the salad days of Gulf War 2.0, when all sorts of liberal protestors were making the statement (which I absolutely agree is asinine) that George W. Bush was worse than Saddam Hussein, conservative politicos and pundits alike were falling all over themselves to talk about what horrible anti-American terrorist-lovers these folks were. But Pat Robertson says federal judges are worse than the guy who commanded the mass murder of 3,000 innocent Americans, and . . . crickets chirping. More to the point, nobody goes back to that "Justice Sunday" shindig from a couple weeks ago and asks why Bill Frist, the top Republican in the Senate, threw his lot in with the likes of Robertson.

AMERICAblog brought up a great point last week (link courtesy Atrios) about the double standard that the so-called liberal media has applied to these situations. You'll recall that last year John Kerry held a fundraiser attended by a number of celebrities in which Whoopi Goldberg made a bunch of lame R-rated puns on the word "bush"; the media took great pains to all but turn Whoopi into the official voice of the Kerry campaign. While she may have been less funny than a "Full House" rerun, however, it's important to point out that Whoopi, for her part, was not condemning any of her fellow Americans as worse than bin Laden or calling out the wrath of God on them.

Where is the condemnation for Frist? When is anyone in the so-called mainstream going to suggest that maybe the Senate Majority Leader should not be palling around with people who call out their own countrymen as worse than Osama? Has so much as one person outside the blogosphere sat down and thought to himself, "You know, this guy Frist has all but declared a candidacy for president in '08 -- it's kind of icky that he hangs out with Catholic-haters, a guy who bought David Duke's mailing list, and a guy who thinks he can tell God to kill gay people with earthquakes?"

Frist's 2008 campaign would already be dead in the water if the old adage about "being known by the company you keep" really held true. But apparently it only holds true if you're a Democrat.