The critics are beginning to emerge. Andrew Sullivan's Superstar is the latest. Christopher Hitchens has already penned his second.

Andrew Sullivan has a personal grievance with the pope and the Catholic church. It is his right, as is theirs, to disagree. Church practice is theirs to set, his to dispute or follow. It is analogous to the 23 year old college graduate who returns home to live and feels that his parents' rules are unreasonable now that he's an adult. However, it's their house and their rules. Demanding the church change is no better than demanding that the parents change. In either case, the door is always there.

So taken on whole, the pope was better more often than he was worse. He was a salmon, swimming upstream against the secular, post modern world. To fault him for his doctrinaire beliefs is to accept the relativism that is so prevalent, so destructive to society. It's the same relativism that prevents Europe today from addressing the growing menace of fundamentist Islam in its midst. The oddest irony of all is that Europe's extreme tolerance is precisely what is causing the growth of a large and wholly intolerant underclass.

He was far from perfect, often obstinate, and certainly stubborn. Of his beliefs he would not bend. Why is that so bad? It's not that the church hasn't done evil, corroborated with evil, and still covers up evil. It is a bureaucracy, the oldest one in existence. But he often rose above that while maintaining the tenets of his faith. I give him credit for not yielding to the whims of public opinion. Once, that was praised as courage, today it's maligned as rigidity.

Criticism of the pope for the spread of AIDS removes responsibility from the afflicted. AIDS is spread through behaviors of which anything other than condemnation is tacit approval. Are we simply animals unable to control ourselves, and when applied to the continent in quesiton, a highly racist proposition. Or are we uniquely endowed with a conscience and the ability to excercise it?

Is not the church entitled to its own truth? Or is one's own truth the domain of the left? Or is it the very fact that the church claimed the truth that is most unpalatable.

If anything, his understanding of geopolitics was limited. He understood fascism and communism, but did not, or chose not to, understand islamicism. For all it's faults, Catholicism is a religion of elevation of life, Islam a religion of devaluation of life. The church was not opposed to democracy, only its not infrequent by-products: hedonism, greed, neglect of the lesser among us, selfishness over community.

As Belmont Club noted recently, in many ways, democracy and Islam are incompatible. More than any other faith, Islam is a way of life, whereas for even the most adherent of Christians, it's a once-a-week, 2 hour occurrence. Living one's life according to the gospels does not subsume every aspect of existence.

(Yes, democracy can flourish in countries with predominantly Islamic populations, like Turkey, but will find much more difficulty in Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia. )

For all his travels, the pope never grasped the futility of reasoning with the most extreme of them. His greatest crime was that in opposing the wars in Iraq and in meeting with the Assads and Arafats, he gave the leaders credibility and leant moral credence to the anti-war, anti-Israel crowds. This gave the kleptocrats and barbaric regimes a legitimate platform, and so set the church on a path of impotence.

What it gained from defeating communism, it has lost in refusing to fight terrorism. With events in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, et al., it seems the pope finished his life on the wrong side of history. That will be his lasting legacy.

I am getting more and more frustrated with blogger.com. Perhaps, as Wretchard noted a while ago, they simply have gotten too popular. I am going to go to a new system soon, one that I wrote based on AMP (APache/MySQL/PHP). It will provide all the things that blogger provides and more. It is open source licensed and should be very easy to setup and get working. The only stumbling block will be transferring all my old posts from the blogger framework to mine.

This whole Schiavo mem flap is nothing but a tempest in a teapot. Both sides have shown nothing more than a quick trigger finger, looking to shoot at the other guy at the first sign of a shadow. It sort of reminds me of those shoot-em-up arcade games where you keep pulling the trigger and hope to hit something.

Were the Wapo and others wrong? Yes. It wasn't written by a member of the Republican leadership. Were the right-wing bloggers and MSM critics wrong? Yes. It wasn't some democratic conspiracy to make the Republicans look bad. Bad job on all sides around.

Which is why I didn't bother to post anything about it. One, it looked on both accounts too poorly done to be written by a high ranking Republican (and it wasn't), and too poorly done to look like a democratic plant (though there's a possibility with Babs Boxer!!).

So, it turns out the memo was written by a staffer for freshman Mel Martinez, democrat Tom Harkin had a copy weeks ago, the WaPo jumped to conclusions, and all in all, it's a tempest in a teapot. It's alot of noise about a little issue.

However, what the MSM ignored, and is now being played out a grand scale is the (in)famous Kennedy email where he agreed to block Bush's judicial nominations. We have prima facia evidence of a direct plan, working with outside organizations and interest groups, to subvert the "advise and consent" process by a democratic leader in the senate.

And that is not a tempest in a teapot, it is an attempt to thwart the will of the people.

No, not on a map, but on the headlines. At this time last year, the four contractors were killed in Fallujah, the war was dragging on indefintely, elections were not even being considered, and it looked like the insurgency was winning. Most news out of Iraq was bad, so it made headlines on every major newspaper. Even when things went well, like the Najaf operations against al Sadr, it was still a sign of our inability to control Iraq, and the situation only settled by Sistani's leadership.

In fact, if one recalls, the "real story" coming out of Najaf was that we were neglecting the Sunni triangle, that we were alienating Shia by targeting and killing Sadr's followers, and that we got no help from the locals. A tremendously successful operation was turned upside down by the media, portraying it as another foul up in the post-invasion "occupation".

Concurrently, the other big story coming out of Iraq was our on then off Fallujah operations. Recalling the Marines and ending the siege was portrayed in the media as a huge victory for the insurgents and yet another sign of administration bumbling and mismanagement.

In the next several months we'd get Ted Koppels nightline roll call, vile propaganda masquerading as documentary, Abu Ghraib, and a multitude of other "news" out of Iraq that was plastered daily on the headlines of every major newspaper. Spain's withdrawal, along with the Phillipines, were seen as huge defeats for the president. We even had the 18 guardsmen that wouldn't go on an operation, "the question" posed to the Sec. Def., the Kay/WMD report, and al Qaqaa. It was looking bad, really bad, and the newspaper headlines confirmed it.

Then an unfortunate series of events occurred. John Howard, Australia's PM and staunch ally in Iraq, was re-elected, then the president filled an inside straight and won in November. Then the Fallujah operation was successful, we began netting more and more terrorists, elections were scheduled, and quietly more and more Iraqis were being trained and prepared to take over their country's security.

Unfortunate of course is in relation to those virulently opposed to the president, and committed to any course of action that would undermine his administration and bring down his presidency.

Than in January, tradegy struck. The Iraq elections were not just successful, but tremendously so. Millions literally braved death to go to the polls. The purple finger became the international symbol for freedom. After an election, what do you do? You assemble and get down to the peoples' business. And that's exactly what the Iraqis did. And while this was happening, some other terrble events took place.

After an assassination of a beloved former president, Lebanese took to the streets. Oh, the vaunted Arab street, long the voice of the oppressed, the anger runneth over at the west, nay, the US and Israel. But what's that in the streets? Not burning US and Israeli flags, but the Lebanese flag hoisted high, anti-Syrian protests, demands for Syrian withdrawal. And dare it be so? A Lebanese Druze leader said that the elections in Baghdad were a motivating factor.

Then Egytpians fed up with president for life Mubarak demand elections and the government relents. Saudis and Kuwaitis make the first moves towards more representative governments. All the while, in Baghdad they bickered and argued and debated. Problems? No, oddly enough, that's how representative governments actually work. Politics is a rough-and-tumble business. You argue, you bicker, you debate. You don't pass laws unamimously on the first go 'round. That's called a rubber stamp for a dictator. But you do your debating in public, open to public scrutiny, and you don't start killing each other. Of those three, they did, they did, and they did not.

And then another tradegy happens. The Sunni realize the train is leaving the station, and they decide that if they hurry, they can still catch it. So, they do hurry, and they do catch it. Clerics previously opposed to the elections suddenly "find Jesus", no pun intended, and now call on Sunni participation. Any reprisals for 30 years of brutal minority rule? Nope. The view is to the future, not the past. Damn, why couldn't they just do what they were "supposed" to do.

So, putting country before party (hmmm...ya think that...nah) the majority welcomes the minority. Even the "insurgents", the Sunni variety, realize the game is up, and make overtures to the government for reconciliation. Then, more and more, those trained Iraqis are doing more of the patrolling, more of the policing, more of the fighting. A year ago, the headlines were Iraqi forces either jump ship and join insurgency or run away from fight. Now they stay and fight, and are up to the task. Damn, why they'd have to be so brave.

It was all going so well a year ago. So many headlines, so little time. So much bad news, how to make it all fit. Oh, they found a way. But now, there's a little problem, there just doesn't seem to be headline worthy material coming out of Iraq. Thankfully the world was willing to help out, death and destruction never do take a holiday. It's so good that there's plenty of other news, where ever and whatever it might be, that maybe people, when looking at the headlines, will forget to ask, "Where's Iraq?"

Item #1

Earlier in the day, Glenn links to a post by Jim Gandelman about Cornyn's comments about violence towards judges. In the comment section, here's what I write:

what is an "activist judge"? One who makes law from the bench, be it right- or left-leaning law. Either way it is to be abhorred. And most of the "laws from judges" have been imposed by the left. Including abortion, gay marriage, immigration, affirmative action, etc. I'm not a lawyer, but I think lawyers tend to have the same mentality that we public school teachers have: any assault is an assault on us all, and though we all acknowledge the truth, we will never admit it publicly. Jefferson warned of the tyranny of the judiciary, and under the constitution, there is no check, save ammendment, on the judiciary. I don't condone killing judges, but when you thwart the will of the vasty majority of the people, that's dictators do, not republics.

Immediately following is a "response" by someone named Janine. It goes like this:

Rob Mandel - 51% is not a "vasty majority" (sic). Immigration is Bush's thing, in January he outlined an plan to revamp the nation's immigration laws and allow eight million illegal immigrants to obtain legal status as temporary workers. Why didn't you bring up the civil rights movement? Still bummed how that turned out?

So I respond to her comments with this:

One, thanks for visiting my site. Two, you'll notince I call the presidents plan amnesty. Three, you'll also notice that in my post, I refered to laws from judges. Four, you'll never hear me defend the president's domestic policies.

What people want

"his immigration policy is amnesty. His trade policies are killing American firms, whether it's the tariffs or the trade with China. His medicare bill is a trillion dollar boondoggle. He has nationalized education. He has spent money like there's no tomorrow, made "compassionate conservatism" a euphimism for big government, and worst of all, ran up enormous deficits."

doesn't sound like I'm shilling form him, eh?

What's the insinuation behind the civil rights comment? If you'd read what I've written, I'm highly critical of us not doing more in Africa. Yours is the typical attack when you have nothing substantive to offer. One, a diversion from the topic (i.e. the 51% thing), then an ad hominem attack. And you wonder why you guys can't win the white house.

But, thanks for visiting my city!!

So she replies with this:

um, I didn't go to your site. I remember Bush's announcemnet from January.

...and I won't click though now. If you want hits, get on a good blogroll (it worked for Joe).

I make a comment regarding judicial activism, that making laws from the bench is dangerous to a republic, especially when there's no constitutional check. She replies with some nonsensical ideas about the civil rights movement and that I'd feel upset at the outcome. In response to the post, I state clearly where I've been highly critical of the president's policies, and she confirms what I've long suspected about most democrats. She didn't bother to even go to my site, yet she can make pronouncements writ large.

I actually have the decency to post my blog as well as my email, and she posts without a link or email. I haven't any idea if this person Janine, if that is her real name, is really a democrat or just a kos barking moonbat trolling on her five minute furlough. But let's assume, given comments recently by the likes of Howie Dean, that "she" is somewhat representative of the democratic activist. Notice, I didn't say voter, as there's quite a difference.

Without even bothering to inform herself, she has already decided that anyone opposed to judicial activism is immediately opposed to civil rights.

I would like to offer this Janine, if that's her real name, an oportunity to post here anytime. She can scour through the last year plus of posts, and can post a rebuttal to anything. I simply ask that she actually read first before she posts. And when she does, she can have as much space as she'd like.

Of course, I don't expect that I'll have to yield the floor as it were. And if people like her are typical of the democrat activist, Republicans have little to fear for the near future.

Item #2

In the faculty lunch room at the school where I teach, there is a group of about 8-10 teachers that eats there regualrly, and we'll talk about anything from school to growing up to politics. Sure the converstaion gets heated at times, and I'm always outnumbered 5-1, just like I want it. It's Bastogne all over again!!! But, they're all good teachers and good people, we just see things differently.

Today, we were discussing any number of things, and one of the teachers mentions the election was stolen. He says this with a straight face and then goes into a whole explanation from the Bush family to Diebold to Ohio and Florida, another long list of connections and names and companies, voter rolls being purged, black voters being blocked, etc. Around the table were several agreeing nods.

Now, I simply ask how this is possible, that wouldn't some reporter have revealed this by now? Of course it won't as the Bush administration controls the media. I simply need to read more, and not get my news from Fox. This is from a man with a college degree, who has taught math for many years, and is really a nice and decent person.

The two items are not a blanket indictment of the entire democratic party, nor many of its voters, but are indicative of what I think is a large, and growing gap between democratic activists and reality. And it's a purposeful distancing as well. They are so perplexed as to how Bush could have won that any explanaiton is plausible. They don't need to read what people wrote, simply disagreeing with a democrat makes one a racist, hatemongering person. The more illogical and asinine, the more probable.

Back in September, I wrote Life in a fairy tale. I had no idea how many people would book one way fares.

I don't know exactly how to respond to the sticky-fingered former national security advisor's admission of guilt. When the issue arose several months ago, I declined to post on it as I didn't know exactly where it would lead, and it was presumptuous to speculate. Now that Sandy Berger pleads guilty to taking classified material, we know exactly what he did. Yet we still do not know exactly what, or why, he stole those specific documents.

We're not talking about the Donation of Constantine and Berger hardly is playing Lorenzo Valla. Or were we?

The first thing we need to know is exactly what was in that document. According to the story, two of the five copies Berger lifted were returned. How do we know that for sure? Are we to take the word of the man who stole them in the first place?

My initial reaction is that had Berger been a Republican, this would have been continuous front page news. In fact, it would have been a major campaign issue, and would have come up in the debates. Why was Kerry never asked by any of the moderators this simple question: Senator, you have selected as campaign advisors a man who stole national security documents and a man who went to Africa and lied on his after action reports. Both have since left your campaign. Is this indicative of your judgement?

Had sticky-fingers been a Republican, the entire MSM would be hounding the Bush administration, and rightfully so. So, my first reaction is that the lack of coverage is about protecting Hillary in '08. What is going to be her greatest weaknes? National security. To make up for that, she has spent the last few years being as hawkish as possible, in a party whose symbol has been replaced with a dove. (Or a statue bust of Lord Halifax. Not quite sure.)

That he got off with a misdemeanor, no jail time, and three years revoking of security clearance is the bigger crime by far. If the punishment fits the crime, this is a slap on the wrist for risking national security. That is analogous to a reporter doing a story in 1944 on the successos of ULTRA.

My second reaction is far more personal. I am furious that a Jew would do something so egregious. It disgusts me to a level undescribable that a Jew would do something so injurious to the security of this nation. In what is the least well disguised bout of anti-semitism, the term "neocon" is a not-so-clandestine term for Jew, well used by both the Buchanans and Moores of the world.

Wolfowitz. Perle. Feith. Kristol. et al. What was the rap on the administration during the first term? They were "hijacked" by ideologues, the neocons who ruined our relationship with our allies, etc. Even Algore got in on the action on a day he forgot to take his ritalin. This is far too close to the "Jews control the government" crackpots, or as some like to call them: democratic presidential candidates.

Sticky-fingers is no "neocon", simply just a con. And being a part of the greatest con job this country's ever seen, the Clinton administration, his sentence and the lack of attention paid to it should come as no surprise. However, it is particularly irksome that he would debase himself for a someone like Clinton. At least Nixon was loyal. Clinton's the kind of guy that'd hug you from the front and stab you in the back at the same time. And do it all with that smile.

A long time ago, when honor meant something, after such an episode, people knew what the proper course of action was. It wasn't discussed, it was just done. You played the game, you took your chances, you lost. Now go be a man about it.