Via Breitbart, the Robertson story’s almost out of gas but a rejoinder this clever deserves wider airing. Most were content to hammer Reverend Pat yesterday for blaming the victims, but this guy’s after bigger game. If you’re trying to divine divine will by tracing a cause-and-effect line between certain historical data points, how do you know which data points to select? Does Haiti get no credit in the heavenly ledger for overthrowing a slaveholder regime and thereby bringing about the conditions for the U.S. to purchase the Louisiana territory? If not, if that’s spoiled by their, ahem, “pact with the devil,” does that mean the U.S. has some sort of reflected retribution coming because it profited from the deal (or was Katrina that retribution)? Or was the “pact with the devil” actually a good thing because God wanted the U.S. to have Louisiana — in which case, why are the Haitians supposedly being punished? If we do have retribution coming, how do we know when it’s finished — i.e., that Katrina wasn’t just part one of many? How come the Haitians needed help from the devil to get rid of slavery, anyway? Wasn’t God on their side? What about other non-Christian countries, as Peter Wehner asks? Stop me before I atheist-query again.

Note that Maddow doesn’t prompt this either; the ambassador offers it on his own, indicating the depth of his indignation. Below that you’ll find Gibbs, who was prompted, giving his own take. For once, he’s unobjectionable.

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