Friday, April 22, 2005

SID STILL VICIOUS. Sidney Blumenthal has a really terrific piece in Salon detailing the political alliance between George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI, noting that then-Cardinal Ratzinger was a virtual running mate of Bush's in 2004. Blumenthal writes:

In 2004 Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points from the 2000 election, rising from 46 to 52 percent. Without this shift, Kerry would have had a popular majority of a million votes. Three states - Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico - moved into Bush's column on the votes of the Catholic "faithful." Even with his atmospherics of terrorism and Sept. 11, Bush required the benediction of the Holy See as his saving grace. The key to his kingdom was turned by Cardinal Ratzinger.

Benedict, as Blumenthal notes, was behind the call for priests to deny communion to politicians who favor abortion rights, something that caused John Kerry considerable grief.

Keep in mind that you can be a faithful Catholic who believes that abortion is wrong, a view that Kerry seems to hold quite sincerely. That's not good enough for Benedict, though; instead, he insists that politicians legislate that view for everyone else, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Anyway, read the whole piece.

NAMING NAMES. Media Log does not normally like to get bogged down in typos and misspellings, but here I go for the second day in a row. You'd think that, by now, someone would have fixed the spelling of Providence police chief Dean Esserman's name in the photo caption on the Globe's website. (And perhaps now someone will.)

It's also misspelled on the front page of the Globe.

GLOBAL DOWNSIZING. The Herald's Greg Gatlin reports that up to 40 positions in the Globe's finance and IT departments are being eliminated. Hmm ... who's going to fix the computers?

RADIO RADIO. I had a great time mixing it up with Scott Allen Miller this morning on WRKO Radio (AM 680). Ms. Mass Resistance managed to generate precisely one call during my two-hour stint, and she seems none too happy about it.

She also seems confused about who and what I am, so let me borrow a line from my friend Barry Crimmins: I'm whatever you fear most.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

>>Keep in mind that you can be a faithful Catholic who believes that abortion is wrong, a view that Kerry seems to hold quite sincerely.

Well, I'm no longer a Catholic and I'm pro-choice by affiliation and, on occasion, by practice. But I've never understood this presumed virtue of supporting a politician who says he has deeply held beliefs - but will refuse to act on them. Wouldn't it be preferable to elect people who have firm convictions and are willing to stand up for them?

Anonymous said...

Don't feel bad Dan. Other targets for the Article8 folks include NECN ("horribly pro-Gay"), Governor Romney (not homophobic enough), and the Mass Family Institute and Focus on the Family (for not opposing civil unions).

To quote their site: "The real fight is about the forced, legal acceptance and sanctioning of homosexuality in both public and private life. "

At the end of the day, they're homophobes, pure and simple. And when they run out of gay targets, they turn to important questions lik e "Are Jews a religion or a race?"

http://www.massnews.org/2004_editions/10_oct/101904_solomont_dershowitz_racists.htm

Anonymous said...

"Keep in mind that you can be a faithful Catholic who believes that abortion is wrong,"

Why would we have to be reminded of that - isn't that obvious? Did you mean to say that a faithful Catholic can favor abortion? How can Kerry sincerely believe abortion is wrong, yet work hand in hand with NARAL, etc.? Voters, left and right, see through this and see Kerry's lack of principles. I agree with the first commenter. Also, why would we want the Catholic Church to act the same as Kerry - teach that abortion is wrong, yet not act to fight its promotion? You can disagree with the Church's teaching, but you have to respect its principled position on this. I can't really believe anyone wants a Catholic Church that is okay with premarital sex, abortion on demand, etc.

Anonymous said...

The hypocrisy lies in condeming pro-choice politicians like Kerry, while supporting pro-death penalty politicians like Bush.

Anonymous said...

this woman needs psychiatric help. So does Camenker...