A: Pat Robertson opposes capital punishment, opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton and supports trade with China, just for starters. Seems like a pretty mixed bag to me. So what makes you call him extreme? That he believes he has dialogue with the Lord? Do liberals now call anyone who thinks this an "extremist"?

NY POST: Do you believe there is a political middle? If so, how would you define it?

A: There is no more a "political middle" than there is a family in America with 2.3 children. People with opinions take sides. Contrary to what you've heard, it's actually more important to stand for something than it is for everybody to "just get along."

NY POST: You speak in the book of "Muslims' predilection for violence," accepting it as a given. But many would argue that many Muslims, in this country and others, lead average, everyday lives, and denounce violence. How is painting all Muslims as violent any different than looking at the Crusades, or at any of the Christian extremist groups around today, and saying, "All Christians are murderers?"

A: Quite obviously, referring to "Muslims' predilection for violence" is not the same as saying, "All Christians are murderers." It would be the same if I had said, "All Muslims are murderers." You didn't do too well on the analogies section of the SATs, did you?

NY POST: You say that "without a fundamental understanding of man's place in the world" (by which you mean God), we risk being lured into, among other things, slavery. But weren't the American slaveholders devout Christians?

A: They may have been devout Christians, but they weren't being good Christians by holding slaves. That's the point: Any Christian slaveholder had to violate Christianity to own slaves.

Thus -- and obviously -- the abolitionist movement was fueled by Christians, much as the anti-abortion movement is today.

I'm sure in the year 2106 some future Ann Coulter will be asked to explain why some Christians had abortions 100 years earlier. Christians sometimes lapse into the church of liberalism by doing bad things, just as liberals sometimes lapse into our church by doing good things.

(To be continued later this summer ...)