Month: March 2010

A new documentary to be broadcast tonight on the BBC has found former implementers of Vatican secrecy with respect to child abuse blowing the whistle on the current pontiff:

Five years ago [Ratzinger] sent out an updated version of the notorious 1962 Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis – Latin for The Crime of Solicitation – which laid down the Vatican's strict instructions on covering up sexual scandal. It was regarded as so secret that it came with instructions that bishops had to keep it locked in a safe at all times.

Cardinal Ratzinger reinforced the strict cover-up policy by introducing a new principle: that the Vatican must have what it calls Exclusive Competence. In other words, he commanded that all child abuse allegations should be dealt with direct by Rome.

Patrick Wall, a former Vatican-approved enforcer of the Crimen Sollicitationis in America, tells the programme: "I found out I wasn't working for a holy institution, but an institution that was wholly concentrated on protecting itself."

National Party identification since Obama took office:

Now for likely voters:

Joyner weighs in:

[U]nlike Michelle Malkin, Dan Riehl, and others, I do think Republican leaders have some responsibility to condemn violence.  No, I don’t think they’re directly responsible for any of it; we don’t yet even know for sure who’s making the threats.  But we’ve had over a year of very heated rhetoric over the dire consequences that would flow from a government takeover of one sixth of the economy, death panels, legislation being rammed through with dirty tricks, and all the rest.   That’s part and parcel of American politics these days and mostly fine.  But, with signs that people are going off the rails evidence, it’s time for leaders to calm their followers.

Cantor says it is "reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain." He adds:

I’ve received threats since I assumed elected office, not only because of my position, but also because I’m Jewish. I’ve never blamed anyone in this body for that. Period…

Just recently I have been directly threatened. A bullet was shot through the window of my campaign office in Richmond this week. And I received threatening emails. But I will not release them, because I believe such actions will only encourage more to be sent.

Josh Marshall protests and calls Cantor's "behavior is shameful beyond imagining."

Joe Klein does a health care post mortem:

The profound question for Republicans is whether they continue on the path of intransigence or decide to participate in the government. Intransigence has its pleasures. In the hermetically sealed tornado of right-wing bloviation, the wildest claims have come to seem the most marketable.

This was a problem on the left for a long time. When Congressman Randy Neugebauer of Texas screamed "Baby killer!" on the House floor, the epithet resonated — the protesters who screamed those same words at U.S. troops in the 1960s sent the American pendulum swinging back toward conservatism and crippled the Democratic Party for several generations. The Tea Party nativism, paranoia and anti-intellectualism embraced by the Republicans have rarely been a winning hand in American politics.

(Image via Joshua Tucker)

Jonathan Bernstein wants to do away with them:

The big deal about the Sunday shows, their real remaining actual function, is that for years the shows have been used to float trial balloons.  Any trained monkey could handle that, which makes me think that Amanpour is a poor choice — not because she couldn't handle it (please!) but because her considerable talents as a real reporter will be largely wasted there.  Beyond that, I have to say that no one should care who hosts the Sunday shows, and that any attempt at "improving" them is a total waste of time. 

My view of Sunday morning is that it should involve sleeping. But as for TV shows, what's needed, I suspect, is a reinvention of them. Real questioning of people in power; discussion of issues, not process; fewer Beltway hacks; no predictions; no sports-journalism masquerading as a serious discussion of politics. You know: what a serious version of the Daily Show would do. Its possible; just not without disturbing the balance of power in Washington.

My take on sex, love, power and corruption in the church here.

Since HCR passed, a big jump in Obama's approval ratings. Maybe a fluke. But he remains more popular than Ronald Reagan was at this point in his term of office – and has been ahead of Reagan now for three months. The approval graph closest to Obama's has been Reagan's in recent history.

Alexa Meade, who we blogged about awhile back, was a virtual unknown two weeks ago. Now she is to be shown at Saatchi Gallery in London. Dak Zak wrote about her in yesterday's WaPo:

Internet memes are most virulent when they blow people's minds, and Meade's "Living Paintings" seem to have done that. For two weeks she has been linked, blogged, page-viewed, tweeted, Digged, thumbs-upped, CNN'd, OMG'd and lavished with parades of exclamation points by anonymous commenters — the plebeian, virtual equivalent of a good opening at MoMA, minus the bona fides.

Zak adds a detail at his blog:

Alexa keeps the acrylic epidermis of her subjects in big Ziploc bags. The nature of her work is temporal; once a model is done sitting, that’s it. The paint peels off. You’ll never see it again, except for in a photographic print. She keeps the molted paint in the bags, as artifacts. It’s very “CSI.”