HATE TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO, BUT...

Pat Robertson has now endorsed Rudy Giuliani. As regular readers of this blog know, that doesn't surprise me one bit.

As I've noted, Robertson and Giuliani's friendship goes way back -- at least to 2003, when Giuliani called Robertson's hospital room to offer words of encouragement after Roberston was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

In 2005, Robertson said on ABC that Giuliani would "make a good president."

Last summer, Giuliani spoke at Robertson's Regent University and Robertson's account of the reaction was a gushing tribute:

Lee, it was overwhelmingly warm. People came out of there saying, "We want to support him, we want to give him money, we want to vote for him." I mean, it was just amazing. We had, I would say -- the cream of the political and business community in this area had come to hear him, and they paid for tickets to come to hear him, and this was part of the leadership series that Regent has been putting on with various business and political leaders, but, in my opinion, it was a smash appearance, and people were very high on Rudy and what he had to say. He did a great job.

And at times recently, the blog of David Brody, the lead political reporter on Robertson's TV channel, has been a Giuliani-fest.

So this has been in the works for a long time.

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UPDATE: There's some surprise at this on the part of A-list right-wing bloggers. There wouldn't be if they'd actually been paying attention to what one of their side's most influential figures has been saying and doing.

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Steve Benen, who worked for many years at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says this:

... the religious-right movement has serious schisms -- and Robertson hasn't been in the mainstream for years...

Robertson, even in religious right circles, is considered something of a clown. He has a cult following that keeps the Christian Broadcasting Network afloat, but Robertson's Christian Coalition has practically been driven out of business, and other leading evangelicals are embarrassed to be seen with him. You'll notice, for example, that at last month's "Values Voter Summit," the largest gathering of the year for the movement, Robertson wasn't invited and played no role whatsoever.

With that in mind, Giuliani shouldn't expect a sudden rush of support from Christian fundamentalists....

On the other hand, Robertson's 700 Club was averaging 863,000 viewers a show as recently as 2004 (Keith Olbermann averages 721,000), so that's not a tiny cult.