E. J. Dionne has the same kind of delusions about the Catholic Church that David Frum has about the Republican party:
The church needs to cast aside the lawyers, the PR specialists and its own worst instincts, which are human instincts. Benedict could go down as one of the greatest popes in history if he were willing to risk all in the name of institutional self-examination, painful but liberating public honesty, and true contrition.
And then comes something even harder: Especially during Lent, the church teaches that forgiveness requires Catholics to have “a firm purpose of amendment.” The church will have to show not only that it has learned from this scandal, but also that it’s truly willing to transform itself.
Of course, this will never happen. The Catholic Church is a right-wing organization, as Andrew Sullivan has pointed out, as is the Republican party, of course. And that’s just how right-wing organizations operate. They don’t backtrack or apologize. In many ways, that’s a strength. But it certainly means they’re never going to come clean about anything.
Mary Ann Sorrentino (how’s that for a Catholic name!) says more or less the same thing — that there will be no major resignations or apologies. I like this in her article:
A quarter-century ago — at a time when about 10 priests in Rhode Island had already been accused of sexually abusing children — the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence tried to stop my then-14-year-old daughter from making her confirmation because of her mother’s work with Planned Parenthood. When that conversation took place in our pastor’s office (and was taped by me), I was also told not to come to the rail, since I’d been excommunicated for that work.
My reply?
“Let me understand this, Father. Because of my work with women at Planned Parenthood, you don’t want me to come to the rail and take communion from the hands of a man who sexually abuses children? Is that what you’re telling me, Father?”
Mike Kay
new tag: Catholic Jimmy Carter
beltane
Sullivan’s quixotic campaign to pressure the Pope into stepping down is his most doomed endeavor yet, the most doomed endeavor anyone could ever embark upon.
Mary
Sure they will. They’ll even apologize. It’ll just take several hundred years.
Scott
Nothing would please me more than for Pope Ratzi to be afraid to leave Vatican City for the rest of his life, for fear that someone would arrest him and charge him with heading a secret child-molestation conspiracy.
Or hell — maybe participating. Benedict has had his hands in every other element of this story — Is it irresponsible to speculate?
ed
Rule of Law, bitchez!
Accuse the ones suspected of crimes (raping children, covering up the rape of children), have attendant trials, then lock up anyone accordingly. Christ, it isn’t god-damned Rocket Science.
Fergus Wooster
@Mary: They’ll apologize eventually, but in the same blame-the-victim way they did for Galileo – “misunderstandings on both sides” (!), or the way Bennie the Rat apologized to Ireland – Sorry about all that kiddie-raping, but it wouldn’t have happened if Ireland weren’t increasingly secularized.
And on that second note – does anyone understand what the fuck he was talking about? Is he confused? Last time I checked it was the clergy fucking the kids, not the “increasingly secular” laiety.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Scott:
It would be irresponsible not to.
I don’t know if anyone’s read the article about female UN peacekeepers, but I feel that many of the same issues apply to the catholic church. Men are never at their best behavior when they’re exclusively around other men. I think the Catholic Church is going to ultimately have to choose between allowing female priests or allowing priests to marry.
DougJ
@Fergus Wooster:
Mistakes were made, no one could have anticipated, etc.
Mike Kay
@beltane: ratz is an old man (83), he won’t be around much longer. In the last 300 years, only one pope has lived beyond 85.
Fergus Wooster
@DougJ: Sorry about that imprisonment and all, Galileo, as you were right about that heliocentrism thing. But let’s not forget that you hurt our feelings by pointing it out.
So that’s all right then.
Oh, and your thread title is full of painful win.
Mike Kay
@DougJ: doncha mean, “no one could have foreseen a….”
Garrigus Carraig
In an article in today’s Grauniad a columnist asserts:
If that’s true, I wish it were more widely reported. ‘Cause it explains a lot about the guy.
Mike Kay
Maybe they should borrow a page from Eric Cantor and blame the kids who were raped for working the priests into a frenzy.
Little Dreamer
Hmmm, I wonder if EJ has ever read the book of Revelation and noticed the similarity of the colors that the Anti-Christ and his minions (called The Whore of Babylon) dress in compared to the Scarlet and Purple robes of the Bishops and Cardinals?
__
No coincidence, is it? Hmmm!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I like Dionne, I was raised Catholic (the suburban, secular kind) and I am personally acquainted with some seriously smart people who were committed to the Catholic Church (haven’t been in serious touch since grad school, almost a decade, so I can’t say if they still are), but it bewilders me. I am apparently hard-wired to be an atheist, belief in some kind of engaged, caring deity just doesn’t compute for me, and a part of me gets that the medievalism is part of the ritual and tradition that makes it appealing, but come the fuck on. Why would any woman, just for starters, belong to this outfit? Do we not know enough about human sexuality to suggest that choosing a life of celibacy at 18 or 20 is almost certainly not a healthy thing?
and these are the same assholes who nearly derailed HCR in this country. un-fucking-believable.
Remember November
The Catholic church needs to abandon its titular figurehead and de-centralize. This whole royalty schema fails in the modern world.
Ron Beasley
The delusion that most people hold is that the Catholic Church was ever a spiritual organization. It was founded to be the state religion for the Roman Empire and throughout it’s history has been little but a corrupt power broker and King maker.
MikeTheZ
@Mike Kay: …wow, that’s just so bad I don’t think I’d have even managed to get that joke out without gagging.
Kryptik
Just an absolute mess. Total mess. And Dionne, much as I love him, seems kind of deluded in saying Pope Benedict could go down as one of the greatest Popes. He’s shown no instinct except to be petty and altogether a downgrade from JP II.
On an OT note: Hey, Newt is back! And he says that Democrats bear moral responsibility for the violent rhetoric and death threads being slung their way by right-wing nuts!
…Good christ, does no one have any fucking shame any more?
WereBear
I truly feel for the people who feel conflicting loyalties; that is never fun.
But really, after all that has gone down just the last few decades, a decision time is coming.
I think there will be a breakaway eventually, a sort of Reform Catholic movement, but not under this Pope.
peach flavored shampoo
He misspelled “Donahue”.
MikeJ
@Remember November: Don’t tell them. You’ll make them more effective at abetting paedophiles.
jayjaybear
Roma Mater Studios Presents…
A Michael Bay film…
Vatican III: Third Time’s The Charm!
From a screenplay by Dan “Trudging Back To The Well” Brown.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WereBear:
Actually, I think Pope Smaller Purer might be just the guy to provoke a reform schism, if he lives long enough. The real question will be, if the third world cardinals make good on their promise to elect a non-European pope. That sounds you hear around the Chicago area will be the exploding heads of my “I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body, but…” aunts and uncles and their friends. And I’m sorry to say, maybe a few of my cousins.
Dave S.
Re Sorrentino’s reply: That’s gonna leave a stigmatum.
MikeTheZ
@Kryptik: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that Republicans have no shame or blame, and its all the fault of the Democrats.”
Jeff Fecke
@Mike Kay:
Hey, a guy who lives down the block from Eric Cantor once had to turn down an offer of a date from someone he didn’t want to to date, so Eric Cantor has totally been in exactly the same place as a deaf kid being molested by a priest. And you don’t hear him whining about it.
Punchy
Never. Clearly, they’ll tolerate 200 deaf and diddled kids before they defrock anyone. Allowing marriage is about 2 gazillion times worse. Or something.
Pope Eggs Benedict is about as guilty of a coverup as is humanly possible. Which means he’ll skate.
cleek
maybe the catholic church could get small enough for NAMBLA to fondle it in a bathtub.
peach flavored shampoo
Ratz gunna even offer an apology?
Bill E Pilgrim
What in the name of…
Excuse the slightly off-topic but speaking of right-wing organizations, I finally got the digital TV hooked up here in France after not having had one for years, the service comes with the phone/internet so decided to finally get a TV and see what’s on.
So after exploring today I find that they have one Anglophone package, which includes two sports channels, something else I forget, about five in total, and includes exactly one news channel:
You guessed it.
Amazing. This is the main provider here, Orange, and their one choice for English news is Fox News?
I’m stunned.
Crashman
This sucks.
The Catholic church was an important and positive part of my early life. Almost all the priests, brothers, and nuns that I’ve known through various churches and catholic schools were great people, and contributed to my education and enlightenment in some way. I think I owe a lot of my liberal ideas to the tradition of Catholic social justice. Maybe I was just lucky, and knew a lot of liberal Catholics.
I always thought change could come from within but apparently I was wrong. I don’t think I can ever listen to a moral lecture by the Vatican again without laughing.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Every country that has suffered from the abuse scandal should rescind all tax exemptions on the Catholic Church and their properties, retroactive to the year the scandals broke. That’d get the church on their knees begging for forgiveness.
Trinity
@cleek: Win!
Rick Taylor
This feels like it’s been going on forever. Over a decade ago I remember shaking my head in disbelief at how the Catholic church had covered up the pedophilia of its priests. Nothing has changed.
MikeJ
@Punchy: They’ll certainly allow married priests. In fact, they almost do now. Recently they were trying to woo Anglican priests to come over, told them it was ok to be married.
It won’t happen overnight, and at first it will be outsiders they absorb and a vastly expanded role for the laity, but in a few hundred years they’ll probably allow it.
scav
@Bill E Pilgrim: by all the dieux of marketing, who came up with that decision?! I somehow doubt those ‘mercans who choose to live with the surrender singes are going to be of that demographic.
Calouste
@Mike Kay:
Medical science has moved on quite a bit in the last 300 years.
DougJ
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Good Lord.
scav
@Bill E Pilgrim: second thought. Hotel package as target. but still. merde.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bill E Pilgrim:
The withered claw of Le Murdoch? Does he own Orange?
Mark S.
Sorry, but fuck Dionne. True repentance isn’t “sorry, won’t happen again.” Here are some things that would indicate true repentance:
1. Open up the archives containing all the
obstruction of justicedocuments between the office Ratzo used to hold and the bishops, for starters.2. Establish a billion dollar trust fund to pay the victims of these abuses.
Bill E Pilgrim
@scav: What’s worse is that Orange is the main provider here, I mean they have a healthy chunk of the 60 million whatever population, millions in any case, and speaking English is a big pressure on pretty much everyone here, professionally, etc. So you can well imagine a French person, many many of them in fact I’m sure, thinking well, maybe I’ll subscribe to this “Bouquet Anglais” and watch some US news….
Good god almighty.
Mark S.
@Rick Taylor:
Exactly. There was a huge scandal in my diocese when I was growing up. I don’t know why people are surprised when new scandals come out.
Jane2
@Bill E Pilgrim: I watched CNN International in Paris. And when you’re not American, it all sounds like similar American cable dreck.
Pangloss
@Mike Kay:
I hear Ratz has “Pope Life” tattooed across his abs.
Joshua Norton
If you mean “great” like the Borgia’s were great, then you’re probably right.
Other than that, I’m thinking no way, Hosay.
MikeTheZ
OT-Alan Grayson participating in live chat over at Crooks and Liars
SRW1
As the German news magazine Der Spiegel expressed it: “The cover may say ‘Bendedict’, but the content is all Ratzinger.” And Ratzinger has been an all-out reactionary.
PeakVT
@scav: News Corpse is evil, but not stupid. I’m sure Rupert et al. undercut the competition for a chance to gain mind-share in a new market.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Mark S.: And requiring any priest/bishop who abused or covered up abuse confessing their crimes to the police as pennance rather than saying a few “Hail Marys” or ” getting treatment.”
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good lord no, it’s France Telecom.
They’ve been having their problems lately, the most recent the spate of suicides by their pressured and harried employees (actually if you ever worked even briefly in corporate France you wouldn’t be surprised. On the other hand it’s statistically not really any different from any other company here it turns out, so meh) but being some right wing American minion of Rupert is not one of them. At least I didn’t think so.
I swear it’s often amazed me that almost all news coming out of the US is right wing. I mean years ago, perfectly rational and not at all wingnutty people, well, I mean they’re French, the dreaded So Shlitz, asking me things like “Now, I heard that the Clintons killed this guy, but do you think it’s really true?”
This is just bizarre though. I think I’m going to switch carriers. Tomorrow.
lotus
“Let me understand this, Father. Because of my work with women at Planned Parenthood, you don’t want me to come to the rail and take communion from the hands of a man who sexually abuses children? Is that what you’re telling me, Father?”
Whoa, talk about nailing your landing.
Matt
@WereBear:
Yes. It’s been too long since we’ve had an antipope.
Face
No offense, but I hope you’re snarking about this.
Shorter Benny: What victims?
R-Jud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As far as I can tell, no. I’m only surprised it was Fox News and not Sky News. Maybe the French, who hate the English neologisms creeping into their language, want to turn people off English by making them watch it blabbed out by Fox Newscreatures?
jimBOB
The Catholic Church is an unapologetic authoritarian patriarchy. They don’t even have an official procedure for removing a pontiff, no matter what he might be guilty of, or even if he just gets senile. Ratz won’t/can’t resign, and he can’t be removed. Meanwhile he picks the cardinals who will vote for his successor.
Personally I’m fine with the RCC going down the tubes. However I really can’t understand why they still have their tax exemption.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jane2: Yes but believe me, what’s being transmitted by FOX and by CNN International are two entirely different things. I’ve watched CNN in hotels and etc for years.
I mean the CNN may have sounded dreckingly American (I assume you mean that you’re not American) but it’s not what’s on FOX, trust me.
Svensker
@cleek:
LOL. That was BAD. (But very funny.)
Svensker
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Serves you right for being in France. There’s gotta be SOME downside.
Cain
@Mike Kay:
They should maybe put these kids under a veil or something so that they won’t tempt them with their sexuality. (bleah)
cain
Sue
“Let me understand this, Father. Because of my work with women at Planned Parenthood, you don’t want me to come to the rail and take communion from the hands of a man who sexually abuses children? Is that what you’re telling me, Father?”
And what was his reply?
scav
@PeakVT: they may think that way but it’s still a damn good incentive to really really learn the local language. from at least my experience of working in corporations, it’s a wonder they survive, let alone get the reputations they have. Evil, yes, but still possibly stupid.
Linkmeister
@SRW1: Yes. Don’t forget that his previous job was “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office, the historical Inquisition.” In his view, the Church is infallible and not to be questioned. Its moral superiority is a given.
I left the Church when I went to college for purely lazy reasons: I had better things to do with Sunday mornings. It was only later on that I realized how many disagreements I had with its policies and teachings.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I don’t think that’s quite the right way to put it. The RCC is a patriarchal and misogynistic organization that also happens to have a few policy positions that qualify as communistic in Glenn Beck’s universe.
Mike Kay
O/t
Palin wore a skin-tight leather dominatrix jacket at the McSame rally.
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/00Tb7QTc4V7sw/610x.jpg
I’m surprised she didn’t wear a french-maid costume
freelancer
Two Hundred Boys, put on Sunday shoes, and dance ’round the room to accordion keys
With the needle that sings in your heart.
This disgusts me and yet, breaks my heart for all the decent people that I knew in the clergy. One of the Jesuits that most imparted upon me a message of Social Justice and hatred of greed and poverty, in a class called Moral Values is now the President of Georgetown Prep.
22state
@Mike Kay: Clearly you are not aware of the odious Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Donohue is the worst apologist for Rome. See, also here.
For the most unbelievable rot I’ve ever heard on this subject, you have to go to The Last Word’ with Matt Cooper, an Irish radio show, from last year on May 29, 2009 – just days after the horrific Irish Report on child abuse and in Church run institutions in Ireland. It is literally gobsmacking.
Itinerantpedant
I’ve said before and will say again. The bishops would be well advised to start paying more attention to where the priesthood are putting their dicks and less attention to where the priesthood are putting communion wafers.
Violet
I didn’t have much interaction with the Catholic church or Catholics as a kid, so the whole Catholic church is just weird to me. Why do people have this fixation with it? Don’t like the church you’re in? Go find another church! That’s how it works over in Protestant land. You can even change denominations without too much trouble.
The priests who mess with kids should be prosecuted as any other non-religious person would be. They’re not special. And any authority figure who covered it up should also be prosecuted. Why is the Catholic church so special? Send ’em to court! Toss ’em in jail!
I get that people have an attachment to the church of their youth and family, but the very strong hold that the Catholic church has over people is very strange to me. Go find another church! Don’t like any of the ones around you? Start your own!
Obviously I’m way too much of a Protestant. The pope is just a guy with way too much power and a funny hat, as far as I can tell.
Chyron HR
@Mike Kay:
Ugh. Hasn’t McCain completed his task? What more can she ask of him now?
Bill E Pilgrim
Yeah, Hitler youth member, pedophile enabler, I bet he was happy to get to that infallible stage, which obviously takes a while to kick in.
I guess once you’re there there’s a statute of limitations about the fallible stuff.
John PM
I have been thinking a lot about the Catholic Church over the past few days, and I think I am ready to send in my letter of resignation. Granted, I have been a lapsed Catholic essentially since college, although my wife and I have tried to get back into the Church since our children were born. However, between the hardline position of the Church and the growing extent of the sexual abuse that the Church covered up, I can no longer be a part of this organization. Even though this has been a long time coming, it is still a very hard decision for me. I went to Catholic school for 12 years and have very found memories of several of the priests who taught me in high school. But I just can’t be a part of this organization anymore.
MikeTheZ
@Mike Kay: Am I the only one who is absolutely baffled at the idea that Palin is found so attractive? She’s just…not. At all.
Alan Grayon on that appearance: Think about what it would have been like had they won.
Fergus Wooster
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, make sure to watch Stephen Fry take down the Church.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L-_cbi_nL0
Also, regarding the earlier proposal for a victims’ trust fund – Bennie doesn’t consider them to be victims. He considers the Church, and himself personally, to be the victims here (Fry quotes a letter by Bennie to that effect).
He also considers the Church, and Pius XII, to have been a victim of the Holocaust.
Just as Father Murphy of the 200 deaf boys believed himself to be the victim.
The mindset is fascinating.
WereBear
It’s the classic conservative conundrum. They can do no wrong. If wrong was done, it can’t be any deficit in them, because they’ve been doing the same thing for so long it doesn’t have any flaws…
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Crashman:
I had a similar experience. But the first event that started me down the road to atheism is when Father Positive-Enlightenment at our church left the priesthood to marry, and was replaced by a parade of increasingly strident judgmental wingnuts. I realize now that it was sort of a trend at the time, but I still find it remarkable that, to a person, all the truly inspiring priests and sisters that I knew as a youngin are now dead or have left their orders. The character of people who enter the Catholic hierarchy these days is just fundamentally different.
freelancer
Phew! That whole “Catholics Come Home” Ad Campaign was money well spent! Right, guys?
Comrade Luke
As long as you’re linking to Salon…
Did they switch to summaries in their RSS feeds? How The World Works seems to have changed in the last week or so, which sucks because I automatically delete any RSS feeds that use excerpts only (except Krugman).
When will the media companies learn?
Splitting Image
True, but he’s often at his most endearing when embarking on a lost cause. It’s when he’s supporting a virtual certainty (e.g. repealing DADT) that he gets overly strident.
(“What do you mean it’ll be ready Friday? If it isn’t done by Thursday lunch you’re as bad as Bush!!”)
MikeTheZ
Tweety hammered Todd Harris over HCR. Asking why the Hell they didn’t do anything during the Bush years, and is now onto Mitt Romney. Actually admitted he’s doing the Dem guest’s job, but he’s enjoying himself.
Also: pointed out the whole “you are not going to get the 67 votes to repeal” thing, which made Harris just babble.
Mike Kay
@MikeTheZ: Wait until the primaries. Mitt will be crucified on MassCare. And you know why — because MassCare provides pubic financing of abortion.
debit
@MikeTheZ: Granted, I’m not a guy, but I never got it either. Last year she sort of had a “naughty librarian” thing going that I could see appealing to older men, but I am honestly baffled that anyone now could find her attractive. The year (and lack of professional makeup artist) has not been kind to her.
MikeTheZ
@Mike Kay: Not to mention the fact that it dropped the stone of socialism on the backs of the people of Mass.
gregw
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: The character of people who enter the Catholic hierarchy these days is just fundamentally different.
fundamentally wrong. evil.
MikeTheZ
Oh, hell, dropped one into moderation by mentioning Mitt’s evil so******ized health care plan in Mass. Oops.
robertdsc
See Stupak, Bart. /eyeroll
South of I-10
I was 14 and in high school when this article came out. The link goes to a copy of the article at bishopaccountability.org, the original article was in the Times of Acadiana, which was a great indie paper at the time (now owned by Gannett). I can’t believe this crap is still going on. How fucking stupid are they?
Mike Kay
@MikeTheZ: well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
kay
@Mike Kay:
The expression on McCain’s face made me laugh out loud. He hates campaigning.
He hates people.
I’m so glad he has to haul his ancient carcass around and pretend he doesn’t.
Mike Kay
Romney = BabyKiller.
John O
I’m actually stressed about this all with respect to my Catholic friends and my near pathological need to confront bogosity in any form.
The whole thing is embarrassing.
I cannot for the life of me understand the allegiance, beyond obvious brain-washing/indoctrination realities. Hell, most of the Catholics I know are cafeteria style, anyway, which The Church most assuredly dislikes.
Sad.
LuciaMia
Well, long story short….If you were brought up in the Catholic faith, you were taught that it was the one true faith. And if you left, you were damned for all eternity. Case closed.
Mike Kay
@kay: he feels entitled and above everyone because of the blow jobs he receives from the beltway media.
maus
It’s a strength in that it keeps them operating when their ideology requires that they never admit fault. It’s the only thing that allows such dissonance from getting through. Life in 1950 (when the FOUNDING FATHERS were alive) was the best, USA#1, if you don’t like it then FUCK OFF GO AWAY, yay Amerkuh.
maus
@Violet:
Tell that to the charismatics. “One true church” isn’t just for the Catholics, you know.
AnotherBruce
Nazi Popes- fuck off.
Fergus Wooster
@maus: Die, heretics. Everyone knows that the one true faith is the Western Branch of American Reform Presbylutheranism.
Ash Can
Hats off to E.J. Dionne and Andrew Sullivan for their efforts, but I’m with DougJ; current Church leadership won’t do anything. An entire generation of Church heierarchy needs to die off — and quite likely two or three — before opposition to the status quo will reach critical mass.
It’s ironic that the more desperately the Church leadership tries to avoid change, the more effectively they destroy the very institution they’re trying to maintain.
Violet
@LuciaMia:
Every religion seems to teach this to a greater or lesser extent. It’s one of the main questions I have about religion – if one is right, what’s going to happen to all the people in those other ones? And what if they’re right. And mine is wrong? No one seems to be able to satisfactorily address that, except to say “faith.”
I hope I didn’t come across as unkind or unsympathetic. I didn’t mean to. This whole situation is terrible and I’m sure it’s very difficult for people who are Catholic. It’s terrible all the way around, especially for those who have been victims of this abuse.
It’s honestly just kind of baffling to me. When one takes a step back, what – really – is the difference between the Catholic church and, say, the Moonies or the Scientologists or Muslims? It’s all just a set of beliefs that someone teaches us.
Gosh, I’m a bad religious person. I really am.
MikeTheZ
God, they just played that Eric Cantor clip on the Ed Show. As a Jew, I am embarrassed he cited getting threats because he’s a Jew in that statement.
Cacti
I ask the question, why does this surprise anyone?
The Roman Catholic Church has a long and well-documented history of being fabulously corrupt.
Is a massive coverup of child molestation in any way out of character with that history?
scav
@Fergus Wooster: it’s already splintered. The Northwestern sect insisted on Merlot at communion and the Upper Middlewest wanted decaf at the social afterwards.
freelancer
@Fergus Wooster:
Emo Phillips:
MikeTheZ
Wow, when Alan Grayson was asked by Ed Schultz if he thought the republicans were fanning the flames, he said “Is the Pope catholic?” Ed wasn’t sure, given recent events.
Violet
@MikeTheZ:
Well, I’m not the demographic she’s aiming for, but I got her appeal during the campaign. I thought she had the sexy librarian thing down pretty well, and looked good for her age.
Recently, though, I think she just doesn’t look good. She’s aged a whole lot over the past year and in several appearances she’s looked downright odd. The weird curly hair on Oprah. The very strange wig-like hair. Her chin is starting to sag and her eyes look strange. I think she has had some work done and it wasn’t done well. She looks at least five years older than she did a year ago.
Calouste
@Violet:
In a lot of Catholic areas (not so much in the States, but definitely so in South America and the Catholic parts of Europe), there simply is no other church. In Spain for example, about 1% of the population is Protestant, and about 75% Catholic, 20% no faith and 4% other.
Violet
@Violet:
Here’s a link to Sarah Palin’s weird curly hair on Oprah: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Sarah-and-Bristol-Palin.
tc125231
@Garrigus Carraig: Only problem with that is Christ’s instructions to Peter were quite different.
Oh yeah –I forgot. Professional Christians find the teachings of Jesus to be a niggling inconvenience.
There you go.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Violet: I think she’s sexy librarian/small market news anchor pretty–never seen her not made up, but just now looking at her pic with McCain on the NYT front page, she looks like a car dealer’s second wife who never missed an episode of Dynasty twenty years ago and now that she has some scratch is absolutely determined to be the most glamorous woman at the country club’s winter formal. Standing next to McCain makes her look like the third wife.
Origuy
@Mike Kay: Rich Lowry is gonna need a new keyboard.
Mike Kay
@MikeTheZ: He’s obviously correct, liberals like Rahm and Axelrod are so anti-Semitic.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Violet:
Am I the only one that thought it was strange she chose the “sexy librarian” persona to appeal to right-wingers? In my experience, it’s much more commonly lefties that go in for that look (men and women).
When I think of the look/persona that appeals to rightwingers, I think the Betsy McCaughey (conservative dress, pearls, groomed hair) is much more traditional. I mean, that’s the look of all the Fox News anchoresses, after all.
LD50
@LuciaMia:
Sorry, but, you know, part of growing up is figuring out when you’ve been lied to. Repeatedly.
LD50
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Well, I assume ‘Hawt Biker Chick’ was her logical first choice, but that’s rather lacking in gravitas.
Cacti
@LD50:
That threats are needed to keep the faithful in place should be the first sign that something’s wrong.
Mike Kay
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: Coulter and the FoxBots on Fixxed News all go for the slutty look. Palin does a version of that with the short skits, 5 inch heels, roller brush make-up, and skin tight tops.
Cacti
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Well, she was a little old to pull off Hooters Waitress.
Dollared
@LD50
You just nailed why reading Andrew Sullivan is such a guilty pleasure. He believed in the Church, he believed in compassionate conservatism, he believed there were WMD in Iraq, he believed that the market really would solve all problems.
He is my better. And he is such a marooooon. (h/t Bugs Bunny). And you get to watch him figure it out in real time.
In many ways, those of us who figured it out the first time we saw a nun act like an autocratic jerk, or the first time we heard about Arthur Laffer, are much less interesting.
And Another Thing...
@Violet: My sister and I have the same take. Plus, there’s a weird frenetic demeanor going on. Today she was in a hyper mode like she was when she announced her resignation. For someone who’s traded so much on her T&A, time is not her ally.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Mike Kay:
You’re right.
Polish the Guillotines
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: I think she appeals to the average GOP male’s fantasy of shagging a younger woman.
kay
@Mike Kay:
I always loathed McCain, so I feel better now that he’s been revealed to be the nasty piece of work he always was.
How can anyone look at that pained grimace and think it’s authentic?
He hates the people who come to his rallies, for God’s sake.
Violet
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
The Fox anchorbimbettes all seem to be blonde. To me they don’t exude the “traditional conservative wife” persona as much as the “cheerleader” persona. And cheerleaders are hot – if you like that kind of thing. Dumb, blonde, and cheering on “our team.” What more could a conservative man want?
Sarah Palin, with her “sexy librarian” look offered a different type of persona. Glasses appeal to men across all political spectrums – they like to remove them. Upswept hair can be taken down – she had that too. Heck, there’s even a country song talking about those very things – “In a Different Light” by Doug Stone.
Then you add the boots (men like boots, apparently), and her trim figure, and her ability to flirt, and conservative men were putty in her hands.
I totally get her appeal during the election. But now I don’t get it. She’s lost something….I don’t know what it is, except to nit-pick at her appearance. But she doesn’t have the same spark she did before, that’s for sure.
Fergus Wooster
@freelancer: Heh. I heard Bill Moyers use that in a speech once. It never gets old.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@And Another Thing…: For someone who’s traded so much on her T&A, time is not her ally.
I think she knows it. I think that’s why she’s cashing in now, i.e. quitting her job, the TV show. I admit she interests me, I can’t quite figure out just where the line is between stupid and shrewd. She’s not even purely nasty. A strange person. You really can’t understate her similarities with Bush.
MikeJ
The mentally ill are all pretty interesting, too. Doesn’t mean I need to read a blog by a guy whose nose tells him trees steal your alpha chroma spirit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kay: Yup. The man is constantly gnawed at by like fifteen kinds of bitterness. Mad at the American people for rejecting him, mad at himself for picking Palin, mad at Palin for going rougue, even madder at himself now for needing Palin (see also, Joe Lieberman, Bill Clinton)…. I could eat up the whole internets completing the list.
Violet
@kay:
I think he hates that he’s a politician and doesn’t want to do it anymore, but doesn’t know what else to do. The thing that motivates him more than any other thing in his life is “not losing.” Not winning – I don’t get the impression he actually wants to me. But he’s terrified of losing.
The man has zero ability to be introspective, as far as I can tell. His inner demons control his decision-making. He’d be kind of sad, were he not someone so rich and with so much power.
eemom
Not as appalling as the sex scandal — but infuriating nonetheless, at least to me, is the fucking tax exemption this vile institution still enjoys. How the fuck can that be reconciled with the blatant puppet-mastery of the Catholic Bishops over tools like Stupidpak……their unabashed involvement in the political process??
Something about separation of funds, perhaps? But I thought all funds were fungible, and that’s why the federal govt is REALLY paying for abortions…….
Seebach
@Violet: Makes it all the more tragic that he’s basically just a loser. And will go down in history that way.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Violet:
Before the election: the best PR/image people the Republicans had to offer.
After the election: her own cadre of true believer weirdos. Do you think anyone would dare criticize the appearance of the modern-day Joan of Arc? The McCain campaign, whatever their faults, had some ability to do this. Her own people? I doubt it.
Mark S.
@Violet:
You’re not going to get Sally Quinn’s old column with that attitude.
Mike Kay
Watching CBS News, and they report, Pope is NOW attacking the press and his accusers of a smear campaign.
I’m not joking.
someguy
Fixed. No need for thanks, Mr. Diderot.
Violet
@Mark S.:
Heh. Good thing I’m not looking for a sugar daddy, then.
Elie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I hear you but remember Budhist priests are celibate. Its not celibacy in my opinion, but the approach to right and wrong and basic tenets of the simple, merciful life and self examined life. I am not Catholic but it seems that so much of at least its most recent decades, the Church is highly reactionary, very rigid and conformist about rules and less focused on humanism and leading the kind and thoughtful life espoused by Budhist principles. That said, who knows, maybe there are Budhist pedophile priests. The Budhist priest existence is so more down the scale, more tied to poverty and simplicity – less to obedience and true wealth …
(No, I am not Budhist)
I feel sad for the Catholic Church. It lost its way and has just become another voice of the rich and powerful rather than for fighting tyranny and for the powerless…It needs to be completely reconfigured but it probably will take a long time come clean enough to start that process. I know that I could not practice a religion so explictly filled with such extensive hypocrisy and contempt for honesty and integrity. The word shame comes to mind and there seems to be none in evidence..
Jeff Fecke
@Violet:
Not Unitarianism! It that’s the One True Faith, I’ll eat my hat!
/simpsons
Mark S.
@Violet:
I don’t understand why these guys want to be Senators until they are 120, especially when they haven’t had an original idea in the last twenty years. Why not try to enjoy the last few years you have left?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Elie:
Buddhist priests don’t have enough status to be able to abuse people and have it covered up.
Cat Lady
@Violet:
There was a reason that Amy Strozzi was the highest paid McCain campaign staffer. It was combat pay.
garage mahal
O/T
Good thread with Frank Schaeffer at FDL trying to talk reason to firebaggers. They’re having none of it, unfortunately.
As long as we’re making predictions, I predict the Dems will “…go down in flames siding with the insurance industry against the American people”.
Oy.
Cacti
@Elie:
I understand that there have been movements within the Catholic Church that championed the causes of the oppressed.
But when has the top brass of the church ever been something other than an unwavering voice of the rich and powerful? Popes and Cardinals love them some Oligarchy.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@garage mahal:
Hey, quit it. Remember, this site sounds too much like a “DLC house organ”, less hippie punching, more naderizing.
And Another Thing...
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I agree, she’s an intriguing case. She’s very shrewd, and probably above average IQ. But she’s lazy. She’s traded on her looks, charisma, and sex appeal. Bush traded on Daddy’s contacts. Both of them are content to be front men for other powerful interests and leave the heavy lifting to others. I think she’s cute high school girl bitchy mean. Bush is cruel mean on a very visceral level. Another similarity is that they both hate hard work. She couldn’t/wouldn’t do the work to run even a small town, and never grew into it. Bush used to complain a lot about how hard being president was.
I can’t think of a politician, or many of the people I’ve known, who is as prolific a liar as she is, and as blase about it when caught.
But the most interesting thing about Palin is watching how people react to her. She’s an interesting litmus test.
Elie
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
That too…
The net result for the Church is a culture and spiritual climate that facilitates and enables abuse — rigid acceptance of authority, little examination or questioning of rules, over reliance on hierarchies and explicit celebration of power and wealth over the old Christian virtures of mercy, kindness and protection of the weak and powerless. The Catholic church has become nothing more than a club for the rich, powerful authoritarian right winger. Hopefully, as I said upstring, there will be a move to reform it or make it go away.. I know I would not send my kids to it and hopefully, over time, their membership will just disappear unless they reform…
kay
@Violet:
I’m completely ungenerous towards him, and have been for years.
I don’t buy any of it. “Maverick” isn’t the same as “huge pain in the ass”. Maverick” implies standing for something, or working towards something.
What, exactly, does this person stand for? What was the point of all those Sunday mornings on television? Does he have some Big Goal I’m unaware of? His own conservative Supreme Court just overturned the one issue he’s had any success with,
If media didn’t love him no one would listen to him.
Cat Lady
@garage mahal:
Fucking firebaggers can’t let it not be all about their lost magical ponies for one fucking day? Srsly? While back in the real world, the passage of HCR means a more stable world and a wobbly Netanyahu. Firebaggers need to STFU and look beyond their butthurt. What a bunch of fucking footie pajama wearing WATBs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kay: Even after all these years of watching him get live hand and blow jobs on TV, I’m still astounded that no one in that little box, save KO and The Rachel Maddow, has noticed that the only issues McCain hasn’t been on every side of are abortion and bombing brown people. And he and his family are utterly convinced that he was a victim of the media in 08.
Xenos
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, a lot of the Luo people are Catholic. If we could get a cousin of Obama’s elected Pope we could have some excellent cranial fireworks.
Mike Kay
@Cat Lady: the firebaggers have become stone cold irrelevant.
someone put a pro hanoi Jane diary on GOS and not only was it completely mocked and derided, but no one rose to defend her. she’s become a punchline.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and since so much of this is about Sullivan, it reminds me that his fellow baselessly arrogant expatriate Brit, Hitchens, is on Maher tonight. The Grand Old Lush also being pertinent for his work on Mother Theresa (and he sold me on that). Does anyone know in which direction he’s spewing his Scotch-flavored bile these days? Does he still want the US to bomb the world into peace for the sake of all the people who would be killed?
MikeJ
@Cat Lady: What’s amazing is how detached from reality they are. If the Democrats are punished by the electorate for the sins that only firebaggers can see, the outcome is not going to be the GOP promising to set up a NHS style system.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike Kay: apparently much of the twitter-spat between Greenwald and the JuiceBoxers yesterday was that they have been mean to Jane.
Mike Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What’s a juiceboxer?
kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He had his chance. He could have bravely led on immigration and retired as a mavericky leader.
But, he didn’t. He’s a leader with no followers.
Gwangung
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Really? Being passionate is fine but surely it’s been obvious she’s made some serious tactical blunders.
Mike Kay
McSame has been in Congress since 1982, and I can’t think of one thing he’s accomplished.
Yes, there was mcsame/Feingold, but thats been overturned by his buddies on the Supremes.
30 years and nothing to show for it.
Jennifer
Well at least he got to use his free health care.
Cat Lady
@Mike Kay:
Good to know – the great FDL Purity Virus of 2010 has claimed its victims and has mutated into a mild irritant.
“I went to FDL for teh awesome Public Option and all I got was this shitty backlash.”
burnspbesq
@jimBOB:
“However I really can’t understand why they still have their tax exemption.”
srsly? What part of “it takes a majority of both houses of Congress to amend the Internal Revenue Code” do you not understand?
gregw
Sarah unmasked:
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-thread-sarah-palin-unmasked.html
I think these fotos make her look better, actually.
Morbo
Since we’re crapping on Sully I feel it’s only fair to point out (credit mbouffant for the patience to read this far):
Take from that what you will.
Comrade Kevin
@gregw: talk about superficial.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike Kay: The JuiceBox Mafia, a nickname Mickey Kaus gave to Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman, because
he’s jealous of their youthful successthey are self-hating Jews who joined J-Street. I have embraced it, ironically, on their behalf.Silver Owl
The Catholic patriarchy has always been all about the papal penis for ages. It is not just a recent thing. There is not one man, woman or child that the Catholic patriarch will not allow to die or suffer for their false image.
This rancid anti-human stance is not just that of the Catholic church but with every organized religious entity where mythical characteristics are bestowed on the religious leaders and actions are ignored for bullshit image.
For those bitching about firebaggers…
Yeah, we got health care and that’s cool. It still stands America fucked me and all women over. Do not think for one second that I even believe in the bullshit that the United States is a free nation for all. I do I believe that if another issue comes up that the majority of Americans will toss everyone but the white man under the bus to see it happen. It is how America rolls.
Now excuse me while go shoot yet another christian dead ass into heaven via my uterus. I am the animal that can not make my own decisions in the United States of America for *gasp* religious dogma. It ain’t just the bishops and pope. My nation bows to selfish assholes…er dickheads. Dicks 24/7.
Mike Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thanks for the info Jim.
And who among the Juicers were being mean to Hanoi Jane? Any links, I always enjoy a good beatdown.
gregw
@Comrade Kevin: The more I look at the pics after the photoshopping, the more gravitas she has, without the make up. damned interesting that she goes with the look.
gnomedad
@Mike Kay:
Do tell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike Kay: I think it was more a general complaint. I just looked at Yglesias’s twitter feed last night and was surprised to see that St GG had opened up a second front in the twitter battle.
Morfydd
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
” Why would any woman, just for starters, belong to this outfit? ”
Because of the veneration of Mary. Because every other American church is just about as male-dominated in leadership and dogma, and has no female role model.
In general, low-level church labor in any denomination is done by women. At least in the RCC there’s a woman acknowledged (to my Protestant upbringing, almost sacriligiously at the level of the Trinity) who’s not the Whore of Babylon.
Fern
@Dollared: Unfortunately, when Sully figures something out, it doesn’t stay figured out. He keeps reverting to type.
Mike Kay
@gnomedad:
Romney = “babykiller”
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20100309mitt_romney_dogged_by_health_care_states_abort_language_may_trip_up_romney/srvc=home&position=4
Jamey
#cleek
Okay, shut down the Internets, we have a winnur…
stormhit
@LuciaMia:
No, sorry, that’s not at all correct.
People don’t seem to have trouble thinking of Jews as a cultural group with a distinct secularish identity, yet can’t apply that type of thinking to Catholics. I personally don’t get it. There’s more to Catholic philosophy than just the Bible. There’s a lot of it that’s not even necessarily even based on theology. That’s always been the case and it’s why fundies have always called the Church heretical.
Also, it seems to me people who are actually Catholic simply don’t tend to view the structure in practice as hierarchical and rigid as others do. Hence why they don’t just hop from church to church. There is already enormous variance among individual Catholic parishes for one to sample.
Jamey
#cacti
Because I thought it was a gay Ponzi scheme (Cellini salt cellars are the Barbies of the 17th century), and not like the Super Adventure Club.
Fern
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: don’t know what happens in Asia, but in America there have been serious incidents of abuse by Buddhist teachers. And some Buddhist sects make a very big deal out of the lineage of the teachers/leaders. Organizational structures can be very hierarchical – consider Tibetan Buddhist and some of the Japanese Zen sects, for instance. There is also a strong tradition of reverence for teachers – and this has gotten some western students of Buddhism into difficulties when they abdicated independent judgment.
So, while Buddhism is my favourite patriarchal religion, there is no point pretending that its leaders are any less human than Catholic leaders. And I have to say that I have met a few catholic monastics of very great depth, wisdom, compassion and intelligence.
tyrese
good lord that’s an awful smear of Jimmy Carter. Go read a book about the Carter presidency and the shit he was given and come back and apologize for comparing him to a child-molester accomplice.
binzinerator
@Cat Lady:
I don’t know why I think that’s as funny I do. But it is.
Fergus Wooster
@Elie:
It kills me. The Monsignor who my wife’s childhood parish priest for is a model in terms of compassion, empathy and sense of social justice. He ministers to the poorest in the Rio Grande Valley (undocumented, no plumbing). And he tries to bring this into his sermons for the better-off. My favorite was when be explained that “Jesus was not trying to start a country club”. Along with various missives against trying to put the Vatican II “toothpaste back in the tube”.
I feel he stays because if he leaves the Church, he’ll lose the opportunity to materially help the poorest among us. But also that he must and will eventually leave, and to his ultimate personal benefit.
However flippant and profane I get on this topic, I appreciate the emotional stakes. The whole thing fucking sucks.
LD50
@Morbo:
Uh, whooops…
maus
@Fergus Wooster:
Priests molesting children is god’s direct punishment for the childrens’ parents not being faithful enough Catholics, or there not being enough Catholics. I forget which, but I’m pretty sure whose fault it is not.
Nellcote
@MikeJ:
Linky?
Nellcote
@maus:
Bill Donahue was on the teevee today blaming the families of the abused children for not calling the cops!
Opopanax
@Bill E Pilgrim:
That’s terrible. Here in the Netherlands those of us with cable are happily Fox News free. Maybe it has something to do with the following bashing of the Dutch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTPsFIsxM3w
sbjules
I’ve been reading The Family by Jeff Sharlet. I’m an income tax preparer and I couldn’t concentrate more than 15-30 minutes a night before nodding off. It’s excellent, but I put it aside and got a bunch of mysteries from the library yesterday. I don’t have to think too much about them :)
sagesource
@Fern: Buddhists can be just as bad as Christians. It’s the power that corrupts, not the religion. The religion is only the vehicle that allows the concentration of power.
When I lived in Kyoto, it was notorious that the upper levels of the Buddhist hierarchy were the most important clients of the expensive restaurants and other dispensaries of pleasure. Big temples like the Temple of the Golden Pavilion are run strictly with an eye to milking tourists. While I was there, the mayor tried to get them to pay their share of taxes, and they responded by going on strike until he cried uncle.