Posted on 04/22/2005 10:09:31 PM PDT by neverdem
It was a move so smooth and bold, accomplished with such backstage bureaucratic finesse, that it was worthy of Dick Cheney himself.
The éminence grise who had long whispered in the ear of power and who had helped oversee the selection process ended up selecting himself. In Cheneyesque fashion, he searched far and wide for a pope by looking around the room and swiftly deciding he was the best man for the job.
Just like Mr. Cheney, once the quintessentially deferential staff man with the Secret Service code name "Back Seat," the self-effacing Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has clambered over the back seat to seize the wheel (or Commonweal). Mr. Cheney played the tough cop to W.'s boyish, genial pol, just as Cardinal Ratzinger played the tough cop to John Paul's gentle soul.
And just like the vice president, the new pope is a Jurassic archconservative who disdains the "if it feels good do it" culture and the revolutionary trends toward diversity and cultural openness since the 60's.
The two leaders are a match - absolutists who view the world in stark terms of good and evil, eager to prolong a patriarchal society that prohibits gay marriage and slices up pro-choice U.S. Democratic candidates.
The two, from rural, conservative parts of their countries, want to turn back the clock and exorcise New Age silliness. Mr. Cheney wants to dismantle the New Deal and go back to 1937. Pope Benedict XVI wants to dismantle Vatican II and go back to 1397. As a scholar, his specialty was "patristics," the study of the key thinkers in the first eight centuries of the church.
They are both old hands at operating in secrecy and using the levers of power for ideological advantage. They want to enlist Catholics in the conservative cause, turning confession boxes into ballot boxes with the threat that a vote for a liberal Democrat could lead to eternal damnation.
Unlike Ronald Reagan and John Paul II, the vice president and the new pope do not have large-scale charisma or sunny faces to soften their harsh "my way or the highway" policies. Their gloomy world outlooks and bullying roles earned them the nicknames Dr. No and Cardinal No. One is called Washington's Darth Vader, the other the Vatican's Darth Vader.
W.'s Doberman and John Paul's "God's Rottweiler," as the new pope was called, are both global enforcers with cult followings. Just as the vice president acted to solidify the view of America as a hyperpower, so the new pope views the Roman Catholic Church as the one true religion. He once branded other faiths as deficient.
Both like to blame the media. Cardinal Ratzinger once accused the U.S. press of overplaying the sex abuse scandal to hurt the church and keep the story on the front pages.
Dr. No and Cardinal No parted ways on the war - though Cardinal Ratzinger did criticize the U.N. But they agree that stem cell research and cloning must be curtailed. Cardinal Ratzinger once called cloning "more dangerous than weapons of mass destruction."
As fundamentalism marches on - even Bill Gates seems to have caved to a preacher on gay rights legislation because of fear of a boycott - U.S. conservatives are thrilled about the choice of Cardinal Ratzinger, hoping for an unholy alliance. They hope this pope - who seems to want a smaller, purer church - encourages a militant role for Catholic bishops and priests in the political process.
Cardinal Ratzinger did not shrink from advising American bishops in the last presidential election on bringing Catholic elected officials to heel. He warned that Catholics who deliberately voted for a candidate because of a pro-choice position were guilty of cooperating in evil, and unworthy to receive communion. Vote Democratic and lose your soul. "Panzerkardinal," as he was known, definitely isn't a man who could read Mario Cuomo's Notre Dame speech urging that pro-choice politicians be allowed in the tent and say, "He's got a point."
The Republicans can build their majority by bringing strict Catholics and evangelicals - once at odds - together on what they call "culture of life" issues.
But there's a risk, as with Tom DeLay, Dr. Bill Frist and other Republicans, that if the new pope is too heavy-handed and too fundamentalist, his approach may backfire.
Moral absolutism is relative, after all. As Bruce Landesman, a philosophy professor at the University of Utah, pointed out in a letter to The Times: "Those who hold 'liberal' views are not relativists. They simply disagree with the conservatives about what is right and wrong."
Mo has a few good sentences. Dumping the silliness and socialist schemes would be a good thing. The rest is her usual screed.
Nothing she writes is even close to factual, just the rantings of a bitter old bitch who is full of hate
Of course, she doesn't think through the analogy entirely.
When it's done, what happens to the man who everyone thought was too old, and too dour to have the top job?
An optimistic thought for the future. (See my tag)
I wonder what kind of drugs she's on...
You know what MO DO is bitter old hag because Michael Douglas dump her for Catherine Zeta Jones
I have feeling Dick Cheney has good laugh out of this hey next Time NO try little harder
I remember somebody call Dick Dr Evil from Austin Power movies
I would date the red X before I would date MoDo.
I don't believe that anyone here is interested in this crap.
Personally, Maureen, if we're going to get familiar with His Holiness, I prefer "Ratz", so I can translate Jesus' charge to Peter (about how the gates of hell would not prevail against him) into Zero Wing speak.
Alternate title:
"Miss Dowd baffled by rhetorical question:
Is the Pope Catholic?"
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.Perhaps a staunch, traditional moralist is just what we need -- on both sides of the aisle.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Revelation 3:15 & 16 KJV
Maureen needs to recieve a good spanking. For once. She's getting far too open-looped.
...And just like the vice president, the new pope is a Jurassic archconservative who disdains the "if it feels good do it" culture and the revolutionary trends toward diversity and cultural openness since the 60's...
Interesting equation she sets up here: the new Pope disdains both the "if it feels good do it" culture and "the revolutionary trends toward diversity and cultural openness since the 60's".
There's a fascinating equivalency for you. Diversity and cultural openness and rampant selfishness all under attack by the new Pope. Whatever will we do?
No kidding. It galls me that this woman, this person, gets a paycheck to write the garbage she writes.
And it galls me even more that any, any, newspaper would print her thoughts.
Hey media -- this woman is a moron -- therefore when you publish her articles it reflects poorly on your paper. i.e. your paper ( insert NYT, Columbus Dispatch, SF Chronicle, etc,etc) is run by morons and is not worth a penny to buy that paper.. sheesh.
It bothers me that FReepers post this stuff.
Mo may, occasionally, be a clever wordsmith ... but I think she's seriously unhinged.
A typically compassionate leftie, she seethes with the same hatred a Grand Dragon held for the blacks.
She fears, hates and sees only the stereotype and not the person, much less the reality.
She should quit the Times and get a job at the local multiplex ... she's a major projector.
Nothing she writes inspires... anything.
When I see the words, "Maureen Dowd", I picture Helen Thomas in my mind. I guess because she is as ugly inside as Helen is outside.
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