Two Political Non-Stories

Two political stories this past week caught my attention for the fact that they'll likely be forgotten in the coming weeks ahead. The first one regards House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request for a large plane that can carry her, her staff, and her family and supporters between Washington and San Francisco nonstop without refueling. As Speaker of the House and third in line to become President behind Bush and Cheney, Mrs. Pelosi is the second Speaker to have a private plane at taxpayers' expense for personal travel in the wake of 9/11 and to keep the line of presidential succession intact should another terrorist attack be carried out. Republicans are crying foul over her choice of such a large jet as the possible choice for use as Air Force Three, noting the cost and the amenities and noting that Mrs. Pelosi's predecessor Dennis Hastert didn't travel in such extravagance. Of course, they failed to mention Hastert's shorter commute (he represents a district in northern Illinois) and the fact that his plane was more fuel-efficient as a result. If John Boehner of Ohio were Speaker, it would certainly be an extravagance for him to have a plane at all, because his district is close enough to Washington to allow a private rail car to go back and forth in. Hey, it worked for President Truman. :-D

The other story were the young female bloggers working for John Edwards who attacked Catholicism and accused the Vatican of preaching misogyny. Edwards stood tall, addressing the right of all people - including his supporters - to speak freely - and kept them on his staff, though he asked them to tone down their Guerilla Girls rhetoric. What could have been a major disaster for Edwards's attempt to woo Catholic swing voters was defused when Catholic League president and professional hysteria monger William Donohue attacked the bloggers for their religious bigotry, only to have his anti-Semitic comments about "the secular Jews" running Hollywood come back to embarrass him, remindng folks once again that we American Catholics probably deserve to be ridiculed if William Donohue is the best person we can find to defend us. Dude, he likened anti-Catholic bigotry to apartheid in South Africa, even though I can't remember American Catholics ever being denied citizenship and voting rights (Rudolph Giuliani, as a divorced and remarried Catholic, is denied Communion, but that's another story), and the American equivalent of South Africa's pro-apartheid National Party, the Know-Nothings of the 1850s, never assumed the U.S. Presidency (they even ran a former President, Millard Fillmore, for the job, and they still couldn't take over).

It's quite interesting, to be sure, to see a right-wing Catholic like William Donohue shake his fist and belittle freedom of speech all the time; that must be what Fascist Italy was like. To be honest, though, there's no place for Catholic-bashing on a presidential campaign blog. If I want to read gratuitous insults against the Church and insinuations that the Pope is a Nazi, I'll read Bill Maher's blog. :-O