It was a move so smooth and bold, accomplished with such backstage bureaucratic finesse, that it was worthy of Dick Cheney himself. The eminence 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 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...