Author: Andrew Sullivan

Bali, Indonesia, 7 am

There's a major rift inside the Catholic hierarchy, with the corrupt old guard epitomized by Angelo Sodano finally being pushed back on by reformists like Christoph Schoenborn. If you have any doubts which side Benedict is on, set them to rest:

The Vatican on Monday admonished a leading cardinal for having publicly criticized the former Vatican No. 2 for his handling of clerical abuse cases. In a remarkable statement, the Vatican said only the pope can make such accusations against a cardinal, not another so-called prince of the church. In April, Vienna's archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, accused the former Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, of blocking a probe into a sex abuse scandal that rocked Austria's church 15 years ago. Schoenborn also accused Sodano of causing ''massive harm'' to victims when he dismissed claims of clerical abuse as ''petty gossip'' on Easter Sunday.

Schoenborn has also questioned the Vatican obsession with demonizing and ostracizing gay people and gay relationships, along with its sclerotic bureaucracy and legacy of enabling Marcial Maciel. Grant Gallicho notes how bizarre it is that Benedict is now owning the "petty gossip" dismissal of child rape. It seems to me that those still claiming that Benedict is a force for reform in the church on clerical child rape have some explaining to do.

Jason Chen translates Steve Jobs' reply to customers about faulty antennae:

In essence, don't hold it that way. Or, use a case. Both pretty horrible solutions to what is evidently a hardware problem. Meaning they probably can't fix this with a software update, or else Apple's statement would have included an item about their engineers working on the issue, and saying there will be a fix soon. Are they going to give out free cases so users can hold their phone in the way that feels natural? Like every other phone? Probably not.

The Rebel Alliance had similar sentiments over the iPad. Fast Company comes up with a cheap solution to the reception problem: scotch tape.

(Image via TDW)

"It is difficult, and perhaps unwise, to suppress this thought: McChrystal's disrespectful flippancies, and the chorus of equally disdainful comments from the unpleasant subordinates he has chosen to have around him, emanate from the toxic conditions that result when the military's can-do culture collides with a cannot-be-done assignment. In this toxicity, Afghanistan is Vietnam redux," – George F. Will, as cited by Greg Djerejian.

A reader writes:

The conversation you are having about political reporters and their access to the people the cover, and the protection of that access, reminds me very much of the coverage of Barry Bonds. Bonds spent years cheating but very few sports reporters would report the truth because they feared losing their access to the locker room. Bonds would quite bluntly threaten that access, as I remember. His hitting performance, due to the cheating, was making him a big draw for reporters. But if they asked about the cheating, they lost access.  Eventually it took two investigative reporters from SF to expose the cheating. Those reporters, who were not covering sports, did not value access to the locker room, so could not be manipulated by Bonds. 

Hastings' career isn't damaged by losing access to his subjects. But Lara Logan's would be.

And yet Bonds' steroid use was as plain as the zits on his back.

Byrd's courageous and prophetic speech before the catastrophe of the Iraq war – which I relentlessly championed:

A famed 1975 Atlantic profile of the then-junior senator is here.

I was the recipient of a GOP email today which had a link in it alleging to show Eric Cantor's ideas for balancing the budget. I was thrilled  and eagerly clicked through. Yes, we'll balance the budget by bravely taking on UNESCO. Seriously. If you want to see how conservatives govern, look at Britain's brutal budget cuts. The GOP are left-liberals on this, pretending to be right-conservatives. It really is time to call bullshit on them. Or maybe that time will be after the mid-terms when they might actually have real governing responsibility and their utter indifference to actual spending cuts will be exposed.

TNC asks:

If I root for Ghana does that make me racist?