Updates

1. Rep. Bart "Baby Killer" Stupak has announced that he will not run for reelection. He had been targeted for assassination defeat by the Tea Party Express and denounced by anti-abortion groups. I'm not sure what the moral of that story is, but it seems clear that if he hadn't gotten way out in front on this issue he would have escaped a  lot of unwanted attention. It also seems clear that conservatism is becoming more and more cultlike. Old joke: "Q: What's the difference between liberals and cannibals? A: Cannibals eat their enemies." Apparently that joke now applies to conservatives. In fact, I'm starting to think that conservative is the new liberal.
2. Let me be clear: As a non-Catholic, my basic philosophy on discussing herein the Catholic Church's current travails is, as Ann Landers used to say, "MYOB." But the Church keeps making it my business. First we had the whole issue of the future beatification of Pope Pius XII. Then we had the comparison of criticism of the Church and the Pope to anti-Semitism. Now we have the synthesis so perfect that it sounds like a joke (but isn't): the Dean of the College of Cardinals comparing the unjust attacks against Pope Benedict to the unjust attacks against Pope Pius. And in an old letter published today by the AP, Cardinal Ratzinger tells the Bishop of Oakland that deciding whether to defrock an pedophile priest he should take into account the "detriment that granting dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ’s faithful" and "the good of the universal church." Somehow this is unsettlingly close to what I can imagine seeing if Pius's letters are ever released.