”NOPE, AIN’T NO ANTI-SEMITES HERE”:
The Remnant Whitewashes Fr. Dennis Fahey

In his “rebuttal” of Sandra Miesel’s Crisis article poking holes in the conspiracy-mentality and “anti-Judaism” of the Sieg Heil wing of the Catholic Traditionalist movement, Remnant writer Christopher Ferrara claims that the famous Jew-baiting Irish priest of the first half of the 20th century, Dennis Fahey, was not really an anti-Semite. To read more on this, go to the full version of this commentary at our Bullies 'N' Bozos BLOG.

POST-MODERNIST HUMBUGGING:
Or, "Here We Come a-Politically-Correct-Caroling"

Many thanks to Fellow Blogger Lane Core for this very funny "politically correct" update of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." It certainly made our Day!

DPI NEWS FLASH: There will be no Congressional Creche on Capitol Hill this year: No one can locate a wise man anywhere in Congress, and as everyone knows there are no more virgins left amongst the interns. However, there are more than enough jackasses to fill every stable both inside and outside the DC Beltway.

OF NEO-NAZIS, CHRISTIAN IDENTITY, & KKKATHOLICS:
Is the Uber-Catholic Lunatic Fringe Going Sieg Heil?

Conservative Catholic blogger Bill Cork notes how the thinking of some within the self-styled "Traditionalist Catholic" movement is rapidly (and rabidly) becoming indistinguishable from that of anti-Semitic conspiracy-theory-and-white-supremacy-oriented sects and movements such as Christian Identity and the National Alliance (an openly neo-Nazi group whose founder gave us Timothy McVeigh).

For background info on this weird phenomenon, go to our Bullies 'N' Bozos Web Log and stay tuned for further developments.

THE MESS IN BOSTON:
It Didn't Begin With Cardinal Law

Here's a thoughtful behind-the-scenes analysis by noted conservative Catholic pundit Michael Novak on William F. Buckley's National Review Online web site:

The Boston Disease: What Remains After Cardinal Law

One of Novak's chief points was that the Boston archdiocese had been ripe for sex abuse scandal long before Bishop Law was sent there:

...The reputation [of the Boston diocese] for lax discipline that had started long before Cardinal Law's time did not compel his immediate attention on his arrival in Boston....

...Cardinal Law faced four huge moral deficits in the Archdiocese of Boston. The first is an unusually tribal and mutually protective, ranks-drawn-up clergy, circling around its own three-generation tradition of moral fault; a pattern of "weakness" or "corruption" in some few, but covered over and unpoliced by the others, in a long-standing and defensive posture.

The second is a 40-year period of massive moral dissent from Catholic moral teaching, especially in regard to sexual and "gender" questions, in the principal Catholic institutions of learning in Boston... This fairly systematic dissent, through which some have boldly called the theology of Pope John Paul II (and Paul VI before him) wrong, mistaken, and based on untruths, has had the inevitable effect of weakening the sense of right and wrong in those faced with severe sexual temptations....

Third is a laity in very large numbers living in open dissent and rebellion, and encouraged in this by many clerical voices — even among their own pastors — first on many small things but gradually on many increasingly large things, too. ...They seem to abhor the most-distinctive features of the Catholic Church, most notably full communion with Peter, the bishop of Rome. They seem embarrassed also by her traditional and not-at-all-new teachings of embodied personhood, the physical/sacramental nature of reality, the full and rich sexuality of Catholic teaching (expressed in so many great works of literature, painting, and music down the ages), the nature of matrimony, and most obviously the tradition of celibacy and chastity as high ideals affecting the lives of all....

WE WON'T HAVE AL GORE TO KICK AROUND ANY MORE:
The Heretofore Presidential Candidate-for-Life Bows Out

This breaking news, first revealed by Gore himself last night on CBS's "60 Minutes" t.v. "newsmagazine" show, stunned many but really surprised no one. Although he confirmed that, "personally," he had "the energy and drive and ambition to make another campaign" for a 2004 Presidential bid, Gore rightly conceded that doing so would "involve a focus on the past that would in some measure distract from the focus on the future that I think all campaigns have to be about."

Hear, hear!

Needless to say, however, the Republican leadership is mostly likely not at all happy about Gore's decision since (to them) Gore would've been running as a two-time loser assuring George W. Bush's re-election.

TURNING INTO A PILLAR OF SALT?
Trent Lott's Dixiecratesque Faux Pas May Cost Him His Career

Last week, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) made the following ill-advised tribute to Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) on the latter's 100th birthday: "I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Lott was referring to Thurmond's 1948 run for the Presidency against then-President Harry Truman as one of the many "Dixiecrat" segregationists who broke with Truman's majority wing in the Democratic Party. (After the 1948 election, Thurmond returned to the Democrat Party but switched allegiances to the GOP in 1964.) The Dixiecrats claimed to be about "states' rights" versus increasing Federal encroachment.

But the Dixiecrats had broken with the Democrats specifically on the matter of racial integration in the areas of voting registration, education, housing, and employment --a reform which Truman and both the Democratic and Republican parties increasingly favored. The Dixiecrats argued that their Southern brand of apatheid was strictly a state-by-state matter, while the two major parties came to regard racial segregation as a violation of the basic Constitutional rights of its minority targets and therefore a Federal issue.

The Dixiecrat legacy is what Trent Lott, whether unwittingly or intentionally, seemed to voice support for last week in the eyes and ears of many, both Republicans and Democrats, especially those old enough to remember those bad old KKK-run days in the South. Even though Lott has since tried several times to get out from under the cloud of seeming to endorse segregationism, and even though most of his critics agree he's not a racist, his carelessness and lack of clear thinking may have turned his ability to lead into a pillar of salt. Hence the call from many Republican leaders and conservative pundits --such as Linda Chavez, Charles Krauthammer, Mona Charen, and Cal Thomas-- for Lott to step down as Senate Majority leader.