Archive → February 9th, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI muffs Jewish-Catholic relations
It’s been a bad month for Jewish-Catholic relations as Pope Benedict XVI has muffed it pretty badly. First he attempted to reinstate a Holocaust-denying British Bishop, Richard Williamson, then stepped back a bit by insisting Williamson recant those statements before being reinstated. All without the benefit of even so much as Hamilton watches as an apology.
Benedict has also attempted to reinstate a prayer for the conversion of the Jews into his Easter Week service, which drags the church back to its Constantinian anti-Judaic roots. To make matters worse, a senior cardinal recently was quoted comparing Gaza under the Israeli offensive to a concentration camp.
Maybe Pope Benedict XVI needs to take a long, long nap and wake up a bit less grumpy… like, no sooner than a week from now. A big, divine time-out for the Pontiff is definitely worth considering.
Tzipi Livni trying to close deal with Israelis
Foreign minister Tzipi Livni of Israel’s centerist party, Kadima, is still trailing Likud candidate Binyamin Netanyahu, a conservative, by margin, but that margin is closing as she is coming off a 22-day offensive against Hamas in Gaza, a popular move in Israel.
Netanyahu’s popularity is based on his stronger stance on foreign policy issues; a former prime minister himself, Netanyahu is the favored candidate at this point, but late moves could still change the momentum in Livni’s favor.
If elected, Livni would not be the first female prime minister of Israel; that honor fell to Golda Meier back in the 1970s. How’s that compared to a reasonable life insurance quote?
Obama gets cocky
Joining his former colleagues in the US House and Senate, President Obama has decided to adopt a cocky tone in his dialog on how the nation should proceed with a $900 billion stimulus bill that includes funding for such things as federally funded abortions.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been quoted as saying that funding abortion would stimulate the US economy.
What?
As his ideas are being questioned more closely, President Obama is adopting a cocky tone similar to that employed by Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, constantly reminding everyone, “We won the election, so we get to do what we want.”
That kind of arrogance won’t extend President Obama’s honeymoon period in Washington for very long. Look for rugs to start being pulled from under him very soon by the same media that “made” him.
