People pay attention to Pat Robertson because it's estimated (by him) that 1,000,000 people who watch The 700 Club daily. His personal wealth, largely built on donations from those people who believed they were funding "God's Work," made possible his position as:

• Founder and president of Regent University
• Founder and president of the extremely active and litigious American Center for Law and Justice, explicitly named to seem like "ACLU" and founded solely to sue people into forcing state bodies to mandate Christian prayers and teachings
• Founder and past president of the Christian Coalition (remember them?)
• Founder and president of Operation Blessing, a charity that is alleged to have used its airplanes to further Robertson's private diamond-mining concerns, and of having donated much of its charitable funds to Robertson's TV operation
• Confidant of President George W. Bush

Any of these would be enough to get an outrageous remark of Robertson's some airplay.

So, let me see if I have the current right-wing definitions correct:

Former Presidential candidate seen by 1,000,000 people every day who funds several multi-million-dollar conservative activist groups and schools: marginal figure to whom no one should pay attention.

Obscure ethnic studies professor at Colorado who publishes academic books and writes an essay that offends Bill O'Reilly: menace to society who must be attacked on national TV professoinally, personally, and politically, and held up as an example of what all "liberals" believe.

Just so we're clear on the standard of "influential."

If you run the numbers, Robertson has about a third of the audience of Ryan Seacrest. The Christian Coalition, post-Ralph Reed, is mostly wandering in the wilderness; the fact that they won't shut up does not imply that anyone is listening.

As for Ward Churchill, a fool and a fraud and a few other F words, he's done a pretty good job of marginalizing himself; he doesn't need that insipid bloviator O'Reilly to help.

Oh, and the White House told Robertson to stuff it with that Sharon remark. Quite properly.

You know, twenty someodd years is hardly "15 minutes" being up. But, yeah, I do think that he's finally rendered himself useless.

I've caught a glimpse of his show during the day and he has a son (scary spiting image) who is there to continue carrying the torch. Frightening! I think remarks like his should get him fined by the FCC because he is just as mean as Howard Stern.

If Seacrest said that God was punishing Ariel Sharon, I'm pretty sure the AP would have noted it. Yes, fewer people pay attention to Pat Robertson than used to, but the point is that plenty of people pay attention to him and believe he's right. That's why his remarks still get wide distribution, as opposed to, say, Gary Hart's, or Dan Quayle's.

Man, love the paranoia. I also love the transformation of attention hog imitation professor and fake Native American Ward Churchill into a shy little ivory tower mouse being unfairly hounded by an eville Fox News blabber show host.

But yeah, I'm sure that George Bush, a Methodist, gets special signals sent directly from 700 Club to his brain that tell him what to do. The camps are almost finished!

Trust me, Matt -- O'Reilly was late to the story on Ward Churchill, and had nothing whatsoever to do with most of rightblogdom's disdain for the Heap Big Phony Injun.

Yet "rightblogdom" had a heap of disdain for this professor guy for all the alleged damage he was doing, but a presidential candidate and broadcaster who reaches over a million people per day is a lone voice in the wilderness to whom no one listens.

Uh-huh. That's almost as reasonable as Lonnie Latham thinking the Habana Inn's parking lot was full of policemen to pastor to.

If anything, as Digby shows here, Robertson's influence is growing among the faithful. That audience was up in 2005 over 2004, and with GOP politicians visiting Robertson's studio to get his blessing on air, there's no sign it's diminishing.

That's called "sucking up for potential votes," a process that clearly any Democrat should be able to comprehend.

Yet "rightblogdom" had a heap of disdain for this professor guy for all the alleged damage he was doing...

No, the disdain was because Churchill is an abject idiot on the public payroll, calling the people who died on 9/11 "little Eichmanns" who deserved what they got.

Matt, stop digging before that hole gets any deeper.