Bobo deconstructed

In a column on Thursday, Private Virtue, Public Vice, [behind the firewall] which he expanded on tonight on the PBS Newshour, NYT columnist David Brooks bemoans the fact politicians are really good people privately, but politics just gets in the way of their better angels:

Deep in the bowels of Washington, hidden from public scrutiny and prying cameras, there is an illicit underworld where people are subtle, reasonable and interesting. I have occasionally been admitted to this place, the land of RIP (Reasonable in Private).

I have been in the Senate dining room and heard senators, in whispers and with furtive glances, acknowledge the weaknesses in their own arguments and admit the justice of some of the other side's points. I have seen politicians fess up to their own evasions and acknowledge the trade-offs inevitable in tough decisions.

It makes Brooks feel so special when he is a confidant to the private misgivings of the powerful:

I have always felt honored when politicians admit me into the realm of RIP, because if it ever got out that these pols were sensible and independent, it would ruin their careers. If it ever got out that they could think for themselves or often had subversive and honest thoughts, they would be branded traitors to their party and uncertain champions for their cause.

Yes, David, it is such a burden these people bear:

In short, our democracy, at least as it has evolved, takes individuals who are reasonable in private and it churns them through a public process that is almost tailor-made to undermine their virtues. The process of perpetually kissing up to the voters destroys the leadership qualities the voters are looking for in the first place: tranquillity of spirit, independence of mind and a sensitivity to the contours and complexity of reality.

The best politicians try to build a fortress around their private lives to protect themselves from the ravages of the process all around them. They try to separate their real belief from their public spin. They stage little rebellions against members of their political base, who would otherwise be their slavemasters. They try not to let the bloated public persona smother the little voice within.

Here really what Brooks is driving at:

In a week when the private mood was grave, the public action was partisan and shortsighted. Instead of trying to educate public opinion by stressing the realities described in the National Intelligence Estimate, the political class, by and large, publicly ignored those findings. The Republicans maintained near lock-step solidarity even though privately, Republican opinions are all over the place. The Democrats ignored the intelligence community's warning about withdrawal after spending three years blasting the Bush administration for ignoring intelligence.

In private, we have a decent leadership class. In public, it's rotten.

Spot doesn't buy the last sentence in the first of the two paragraphs. As much as Spot is able to understand, the intelligence community thinks Bush and Mc Cain's escalation plan will come a cropper, just as everything else has in the war In Iraq.

What Spotty really finds offensive, boys and girls, is the implicit suggestion that we shouldn't really be so hard on Senate Republicans for their filibuster against the debate of the Iraq war resolutions. Give them a break, says Brooks!

Spot has some news for you David. Private virtue, which Republicans are so big on, is meaningless. If you say nice things in private, but act like an ogre in public, guess what? You're an ogre! Actually, a gutless ogre. And meaningless little gestures of "rebellion" as acts of contrition are only masturbation, not redemption.

Update: This column was in the Strib on February 11th.

Tags: David Brooks, Iraq war

Marcus and the Exorcist team up

Scene: Evening at Reagan airport at the curb. It is raining, and a slight man with a scruffy gray beard waits with a small black leather doctor's bag. He is wearing an Irish tweed porkpie hat and a raincoat, but he has no umbrella. The rain is dripping off his nose.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" the man intones under his breath, "Marcus better get here soon, or I'll freeze me arse."

Just then, a green sedan of unknown provenance pulls up to the curb. The passenger window opens, and the driver calls out, "Are you Father Seamus?"

"I am," replies the man, "and I hope to God you're Marcus Bachmann!"

"That I am," says the driver, who thinks to himself: I'm even starting to sound like an Irish Catholic.

The little priest opens the rear door and places the valise carefully on the seat. Then he climbs in front next to Marcus. "Hell of an evening out there. Give me snow in the winter every time."

"Sure, and I agree," replies Marcus. Father Seamus looks at him a little strangely.

"Have you done as I asked, my son?" inquires Father Seamus.

"Oh yes, Father. I think I've got it all. The straight jacket and the shackles. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find these things. I drew a big blank at the medical supply houses. I thought some of them were going to call the cops on me. I finally found what I needed at a place called Elvira's House of Pain." Marcus shivers involuntarily and continues, "I don't ever want to see the inside of that place again! But at least the clerk, a woman I think, but really muscular, didn't give me a second look."

"Good. Did you get the jug of distilled water for me to bless?" asks Father Seamus.

"Yes. I also spent a couple of hours at Michele's office, removing all the furniture from the reception area. There's nothing loose to fly around. That's why I was a little late. Are you sure that's all necessary?"

The priest snorts, "You may depend upon it, my son."

They drive wordlessly toward Capitol Hill for a while, and then Marcus asks, "What's in the bag?"

The priest is quiet for a moment, and then says, "Holy warrior supplies. Some vestments and the exorcism manual."

"You have a manual for this?" asks Marcus, incredulous.

"Why yes, of course. I don't remember all of it. I've also got a Holy Relic."

"What?"

"A Relic. It's not the bone of a saint, but I do have Archbishop John Ireland's false teeth. Evil spirits tremble at the sight of a True Relic."

"Has this True Relic ever bitten anybody?" asks Markus.

"Not when I've used 'em. Can't speak for everyone else. But I don't think so." Father Seamus measures the silence for a question, and finally asks it, "Son, you're not Irish, are ye?

Marcus sighs and says "no" softly.

"That's okay Marcus, Katie's not Irish either. So I assume you're German Catholic like Katie?"

"Well, I . . . ."

"Because I was thinking we should stop by you church and say a few prayers and light a candle for your dear Michele."

"Father, we don't have a church out here in D.C. yet. Our church home is still in Minnesota."

"Ah, I see. Just out of curiosity, what church do you go to?

Marcus hesitates, and then says, "We are members of a church in Stillwater, a Lutheran Church in fact. A Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Church."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! STOP THE FECKIN'CAR! I want to get out!"

"Come on, Father Seamus, I was only being honest with you."

"You've got some mighty peculiar ways of demonstratin' honesty and goodwill. I thought you and Michele were Catholics. Now I find you're not only not Catholics, but you're Lutherans who believe His Holiness the Pope is the Anti-Christ."

"Katie said we would have to be Catholics for you to help. I didn't know what to do, so I kept quiet about it until now. But seeing you work on this, I really want to become a Catholic, and I want Michele to become one, too."

Well, you can speak fer yerself all right, but we'll have to get your wife out of the clutches of the devil before she can decide what pew she's going to sit in."

"So you'll still help us?"

"Yes, but I'll be makin' you a Catholic the hard way, Marcus. That first confession of yours is going be a doozey."

"I understand, Father Seamus." [a pause] "Father Seamus, I was wondering whether I could use exorcism in my business."

"And what business might that be."

"It might be, well it is, turning homosexuals away from their sinful lifestyle. I know that's a top priority for Catholics, too." And James Dobson thought that Ted Haggard's problem was not homosexuality so much as possession by evil spirits. I think Haggard himself once called homosexuality a form of possession."

Father Seamus is thoughtful for a moment, and then says, "I don't think it would help, my son. I know some homosexuals myself, good Godly men, if you follow my meanin'.

"I guess I do. Well, here we are. We've got to get up to Michele's office pretty quickly. I told her to meet me there at eleven.

Technorati tags: Michele Bachmann, exorcism

Hear Arianna say "squash the subpoena"

This is a link to Skippy of an interview with Jane Hamsher, Arianna Huffington, and Swopa about Tim Russert's testimony at Libby's trial. She gets it right later. The interview is actually pretty good.

Recycling causes social decay!

You're kidding, right Spotty?

That's what Katie says in her column today.

Are you sure? Isn't that just you take on it?

Judge for yourself, grasshopper:

The environmental gospel [a theme of the column we will develop a little more in a moment, Spot] has a strong appeal, especially for contemporary men and women who are turning away from traditional religion. The green crusade satisfies the universal human hunger for meaning. At the same time, it asks little of believers: no tough commandments about forgiving your neighbor or not coveting his wife. Instead, it offers rituals like recycling and (for those who aspire to sainthood) biking to work. The larger society will pay the serious costs of redemption.

Boy, Spot, I guess you're right!

That one is gonna hit Charlie right where he lives; you might want to check Across the Great Divide a little later, grasshopper. Spot has read Katie long enough to know that her sense of irony must have been beaten out of her as a child, or he would be tempted to take the quoted language as intended irony. (Katie does lots of unintended irony, but that's different.) However, she follows up that paragraph with this one:

There are more sensible approaches to environmental problems than the
environmental gospel. Without viewing human beings as inherently
wicked, or environmental problems as a righteous clash between good and
evil, citizens and leaders could tackle environmental issues as public
policy challenges whose solution requires a careful weighing of
scientific data and the costs and benefits of various responses.

Now that was unintended irony! Do you see what Spot is saying, grasshopper? Katie spends most of her day dividing up the world into the good and the bad. Katie doesn't even have a bin for the beautifully-challenged!

Christians? Good. Muslims? Bad. Public schools? Bad. Wal-Mart? Good. Private schools? Good. Homosexuals? Bad. Unions? Bad. Teevee? Bad. Spare the rod and spoil the child? Bad. Katie is nothing if not predictable.

This morning, though, Katie counsels moderation. Why? Because Katie understands that she--and her ilk, to use a favorite conservative word--is being consigned to the "bad" bin for her environmental thinking. And Katie doesn't like it one bit.

With unintended irony, Katie does a role reversal and projects onto environmentalists the same fundamentalist qualities that she holds when it comes to her religion. Here's what Katie says about that:

Sometimes, however, it seems something more is going on [than simple "good stewardship"]. We see it in the apparent eagerness of some "people of faith"' to embrace worst-case environmental scenarios. We hear it in their crusading zeal as they proselytize others, for example, to attend a screening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" in the church basement.

Environmental issues are complex, and often involve data that are open to different interpretations. Yet in some religious circles, if you raise a skeptical question about, say, global warming (a highly debated subject), you are spurned as if you've committed heresy.

Things getting a little uncomfortable around the coffee table after services, Katie? No, it's not heresy Katie, just garden-variety stupidity. We know, Katie, that you expect the Heavenly Hoover to sweep down and rapture-vac you and yours to Glory. But a lot of us as a little skeptical, and we'd rather keep ol' mom earth in livable condition.

Katie is right about one thing, though. Global warming is highly debated. We have universal legitimate scientific opinion on the one hand, and crackpots and obfuscating knaves on the other.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, environmentalists, projection, Al Gore

Nick Coleman rewritten

Spot is a fan of Nick Coleman. A lot of the social Darwinist hunter gatherer types give him a hard time, but Nick's a newspaper man with decades of experience and pretty good judgment about human nature. Spot appreciated this column of Nick's that was published in the Strib on February 2nd.

Spot thought it would be fun, however, to rewrite the column, or at least supplement it, as if Nick had let his inner Spot out - he was off the leash, so to speak. Spot's addition are in italics. They are Spot's words not Coleman's.


Nick Coleman: So North High has troubles? Let's torch it

By Nick Coleman, Star Tribune

Burn it.

That's City Councilman Don Samuels' suggestion for Minneapolis North High School: Burn it down.

Someone please call the Fire Department and ask if they have anything to spray on dangerously overheated rhetoric.

Samuels, whose ward includes North High, is profiled by David Brauer in this
month's Mpls.-St. Paul Magazine. Watch you don't get your eyebrows
singed off by this:

"I've said burn North High School down! I can't be paying as a taxpayer for the education of my neighbors and 72 percent of them are failing -- meaning the black boys."

What a demagogue. Can black people be crackers? This clown must be spending his time with Katie or Captain Fishsticks. You'd almost think he's got an hidden agenda.

Samuels says he read that 72 percent figure somewhere. I can't find it. As far
as I can tell, North is not the worst high school in the city. In fact,
it has some good things going for it, including a dynamic principal who
is making changes. In my mind, public schools need help from public
officials. They don't need a kick in the teeth.

North High Principal Mike Favor, a 1984 North High grad, says Samuels'
flame-throwing is not aiding efforts to bring improvements to the
school of 1,000 students (68 percent are black).

The school has been an anchor of the African-American community for decades.

"It's damaging," said Favor, who plans to meet with Samuels early this
morning, before Samuels meets with the school's faculty to try to
explain himself. "To hear something like that is offensive. I feel like
I have to apologize to every North High graduate and to anyone who
sends their kid here. It's disheartening."

By the way, Samuels is a close ally of Mayor R.T. Rybak. I called Rybak's office to ask where he stands on his friend's proposal to burn down a high school. I didn't get an answer.

I wonder if Rybak knows how closely Samuels is tied to ring-wing "philanthropy." Being too close to Samuels will probably hurt Rybak in Minneapolis if the latter decides to run for the Senate next year.

Samuels isn't backing down

Favor, in his third year as principal, is proposing lots of changes: An extended
school year, rigorous class requirements and the wearing of a school
uniform. Samuels, who has not set foot inside North during the school
day, supports those changes. But the black elected official (he is a
native of Jamaica) refuses to withdraw his comments.

"I'm not here to be liked," Samuels said Thursday. "I'm against anything that
tolerates the failure of black people. This is the most important conversation we can have, and I meant it [his remarks] exactly as I made them, in order to make people angry and raise concern to a visceral level. I'm speaking forcefully against the current way of doing things."

Well, Preacher, it says somewhere in Proverbs that he who troubles his own house will inherit the wind.

Samuels' attack seems linked to his advocacy of school vouchers -- the controversial proposal to let families use public tax dollars to pay for private schools. A Baptist minister, Samuels sends his children to Ascension Catholic School. His wife, Sondra, works as a local organizer for the Black Alliance for Educational Opportunities, a Milwaukee-based group that is pushing for school vouchers.

That's the hidden agenda I was telling you about earlier. "Ascension" is a Bill Cooper trademark, by the way.

That group is largely funded with grants from right-wing foundations -- including the Bradley Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation -- considered by some to be hostile to all public education.

Who are we kidding? These outfits have never met a public institution, especially a public school, they didn't want to kill. Media Transparency has had a good run-down on these cesspools for a long time.

"My children will not darken the door of a Minneapolis public school," Samuels was quoted as saying. Other black leaders have said such things. But it is shocking, coming from the official who represents the North High area.

You have to wonder what kind of tuition deal the Samuels get at Ascention in exchange for all the hatchet work?

"The North Side has a resilient history, and we are a resilient people," says Favor. "For him to just throw in the towel like this -- well, maybe he doesn't understand the history of the North Side. We are not above criticism; we have to do better. But we are a pillar of the North Side and this is about our community. 'Burn it down?' Come on in, before you start going after us."

Samuels did not make vouchers an issue in his campaigns (he won a special election in 2003, then won a four-year term in 2005). So his incendiary words blindsided many, including the students.

I met with a dozen North High kids. All are getting passing grades, some are on the honor roll, most hope to go to college. Some are basketball players, some are Wallin Scholars, some are both.

'How can he say that?'

And all agreed: Don Samuels doesn't know enough about North High to burn it down.

But arsonists only need to know enough about a place to set the fire, I guess.

"Burn our school down? That's like taking a shot at us -- like saying tear us down, too," said Jeremiah Moore, a junior.

"Nobodyhere has met the man, so how can he say that about us?" asked Troy
Miller, a sophomore. "He's playing it safe, blaming the school because
it has a stereotype and a stigma against it."I think he based that on
what happens around the community, not at North High," said Ronald
Buck, a senior. "It's a cop-out. It shows he doesn't want to put the
work in to make our school progress."

Ronald Buck says it as well as anyone. Samuels is just trying to use his position to further damage a public school precisely because he doesn't want the school to succeed. It's contrary to his political agenda. The public schools are a convenient scape goat for a community's problems. Deal with them in an honest way, and the schools will take care of themselves.

By accident or on purpose, Don Samuels has started a conflagration. I hope the fire doesn't get out of control.

Technorati Tags: Nick Coleman, Don Samuels, school vouchers, arson

Ted Haggard cured!

It's a miracle! Ted Haggard is cured after three weeks of counseling in Arizona that has made him "completely heterosexual." From the linked Denver Post article:

Ralph [one of the ministers at Haggard's former church] said three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed Arizona treatment center helped Haggard immensely and left Haggard sure of one thing.

"He is completely heterosexual," Ralph said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting - out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing."

Why Haggard chose to act out in that manner is something Haggard and his advisers are trying to discern, Ralph said.

Isn't this a great blessing, boys and girls? What? Grasshopper, you look skeptical.

How dumb does he think people are?

Maybe not so much dumb as gullible, grasshopper.

Either way, it's an absurd claim.

Spot agrees. The best is yet to come, however. According to the article:

The Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur also said the four-man oversight board strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work instead of Christian ministry if Haggard and his wife follow through on plans to earn [online] master's degrees in psychology.

The article says that the Haggards are considering moving to Missouri or Iowa, but Spot urges them to come to Minnesota. They could go into practice with Marcus Bachmann!

Technorati Tags: Ted Haggard, Marcus Bachmann

D.J. Tice: the syncopated drummer

Spot doesn't ordinarily read The Big Question at the Strib. Eric Black seems smart and well intentioned, but sometimes he's so damn earnest he makes Spot's teeth hurt. And then D.J. Tice got added to the mix, at first just a malign hermit crab, but now metathesizing into a fatal stain of sophomoric blather. And this guy is Katie's editor. God help us all.

Consider the latest tour de farce from D.J. Here's the lede:

Yes, as Eric said in his post last week , if Bush’s policies result in a lasting loss of America’s overseas credibility that would become a count against Bush’s historical reputation. Considered in itself, a loss of world support can’t be a good thing.

Yet everything depends, does it not, on whether foreign opinion is well-founded? Hardly anyone — future historian or contemporary citizen — would worry much about hostile foreign opinion if they believed that Bush’s policies were just and necessary. And those who judge Bush policy misguided and malignant would presumably go on believing so even if Indonesians and Finns disagreed.

So this can easily become another proxy argument - just another way of debating our own views of Bush.

Right, D.J. Say, D.J., do you know what people who march solely to their own syncopated drummer, who only look to their own gut for the truth, who only obey the voices in their own heads are called?

They are called psychopaths.

The world's greatest miseries have by and large been caused by characters who are in tune only with themselves. Consider just a few from the last century: Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Spot is sure they each thought foreign opinion was waaay off.

Only somebody possessing the basic human empathy of a mushroom would suggest that the world, yes the whole world, might be wrong, and we, especially the dim-witted, incurious George might be right. It is a proposition beyond laughable. Would that it were only the Indonesians and the Finns who disagreed with us.

D.J., do you really think the world is incapable of understanding the United States? We had the sympathy and support of the world after September 11, 2001. It is only when we became unhinged and began our titanic dissembling about Iraq that we began to lose that goodwill.

D.J. concludes his homily with a little ode to American exceptionalism:

In truth, though, America is different from the rest of the world, always has been, and always has inspired a bewildered mixture of admiration and contempt. In a 1924 essay called “The Strangeness of America,” English essayist G.K. Chesterton could write: “I really did feel as if I were on another planet when I was in the United States.” Elsewhere, he marveled that:

“If it comes to thinking, to questioning… [n]o people have done it less than the American people. The great mass of the American people remain, both for good and evil, stolidly, stubbornly, astoundingly conservative in their ideas.”

(G.K. Chesterson Collected Works, Volume XXXIII, pages 266, 380)

Spot suggests a little more contemporary commentator on the myth of American exceptionalism: the historian Howard Zinn:

The notion of American exceptionalism—that the United States alone has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as 1630 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop uttered the words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald Reagan. Winthrop called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a “city upon a hill.” Reagan embellished a little, calling it a “shining city on a hill.”

The idea of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and emulate us.

In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians.

D.J., Spot says to knock off the sanctimonious and self-absorbed twaddle, read some foreign newspapers, and for God's sake, stop thinking that the US has some kind of moral authority.

Technorati Tags: psycopaths, American exceptionalism

Paging George Lakoff

Hey Spotty! Did you read Katie's column this morning?

Yes, I read it. It's Spot's job, after all.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. It's a really nice story about how Katie and her husband are already feeling sad about being empty nesters next year.

You missed the subtext, grasshopper.

What?

You missed the subtext. How many times has Spot told you that with Katie, the subtext is everything?

Ok, I'll go back and read it again.

Spot will save you the trouble, grasshopper. Here's the money quote:

Throughout, it's vital to keep the goal of child-rearing in mind. "The
goal is to let them go and help them find a place to make a
contribution, make their mark as an adult," says Buri [the St. Thomas psychology prof quoted by Katie].

In other words, you have to shove the little buggers out; it's for their own good. Incidentally, when we had our field observation of the communix rixatrix, the common scold, the other day, Spot forgot to mention that the mother scold often drives her young away from the nest whether they are ready or not. The result is higher mortality for young scolds. That's why the scolds are prolific: it's an effort to perpetuate their species.

Katie's repeat of the quote above fits perfectly in her world view and what George Lakoff would call the strict-father (parent) morality. Here's what Lakoff says (at page 66 of his book Moral Politics) on the subject:

The mature children of the Strict Father have to sink or swim by themselves. They are on their own and have to prove their responsibility and self-reliance. They have attained through discipline [another of Katie's favorite themes], authority over themselves. They have to, and are competent to, make their own decisions. They have to protect themselves and their families. They know what is good for them better than their parents. Good parents do not meddle or interfere in their lives. Any parental meddling or interference is strongly resented.

One of Lakoff's principal theme in his book is that people who employ this child-raising method often project it onto politics. When they do, they're usually conservatives. It's understandable. If I kick my own kids out of the house, why should I care about anybody else's?

Spot believes this mode of thinking is one of the most important ingredients in social Darwinist hunter-gathererism.


Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, George Lakoff

Marcus talks to the Exorcist

Ring. Ring. [answered by a young priest] Rectory. How may I help you?

Well, I'm calling for a Mr. O'Connor. I mean Father O'Connor. Seamus O'Connor. I was told he might be able to help me.

O'Connor? Hmm, O'Connor. Oh yes. You must mean the man we call Father Potty. He's here. Hang on a moment and I'll get him. [with hand over the mouthpiece, he calls out across the room] Seamus! Phone for you.

FP: Aw feck! I just got settled in for a nap. If it ain't the Archbishop, take a message.

Uh, may I tell the Father who's calling?

I . . . I . . . I'm Mark Backman. And I really need to talk to Father Potty.

Seamus, it's Mark Backman, and he really wants to talk to you. [quietly into the mouthpiece] Please don't call him Father Potty. He's kind of sensitive about that.

FP: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I ain't goin' out to get smokes for anybody else today!

I doubt that's what he wants. [hands phone to Father Potty]

FP: What do you want? I mean good mornin' and a blessin' on you and yours.

Good morning Father Po— Seamus. You come highly recommended.

I do? [suspiciously] By who?

Let's say it was by a faithful adherent to your, I mean our, One True Faith. Highly recommended. And I do need your help.

[warming to the flattery] You need my help, my son? [his guard goes back up] Wait a minute. There's a lot of jokers around the rectory. How do I know you're not one of 'em? I can't hear as well as I used to, you know.

Really. This is legit. I swear on my sainted mother.

Ah, your mother passed. I am truly sorry to hear it.

No, she's fine. I was just trying to emphasize that I was telling the truth.

By lyin' about your mother's death? That's a poor way to try, if you ask me! Who told you to call me?

I promised that I wouldn't say.

Oh you did, did you? Tell me now or this conversation is over. And remember that lyin' is a mortal sin.

It is? Okay. [pause] It was Katherine Kersten.

Oh, Katie! That different! Why didn't ya say so in the first place! She's a satisfied customer, in a manner of speakin'. And what's your real name, my son?

Marcus Bachmann. I am calling about my wife Michele. Maybe you've heard of her.

Can't say I have. But I don't get around much anymore.

I don't know how else to say this. I think Michele may be possessed by Satan.

The hell you say!

[sobbing] I really do!

Ok, son. Take it easy. Most o' yer so-called possessions are explained by just a bad case of the snits.

Snits?

Surely you have heard that term? It just means somebody is in a snit—worked up about something.

Now I understand. But I think it is more serious than that.

All right. Let me ask yer a couple of questions. Has she started to spit on other people?

She spit on a Congressman recently.

A Congressman? Sweet-Jesus-Soap-On-A-Rope! Let's calm down: that doesn't mean much by itself. Could be one thing, or it could be another. Has she been talkin' strange, other-worldly like? Screeching stuff nobody can understand?

Michele has spoken in tongues for a long time.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! That's bad. One last question. Has she started showin' affection for other men?

Oh no! I mean yes! She made out with the President of the United States!

Feck! Feck! Feck! Holy Mother o' God! Lucifer has got her for sure! Jaysus, calm down son.

Actually, I think I am calmer than you, Father Seamus.

Maybe, but I know that you'll be wantin' my help in gettin' your wife back, right?

Yes, Father, that's right.

But son, I'm really out of the business, officially, and the Archbishop frowns on freelance work.

But you're my only hope, Father.

[smiling in spite of himself] I suppose you're right my son. Where is your wife now?

We're both in Washington.

D.C? That den of inequity? It's no wonder you have a problem! But I suppose that if you're going to make out with a President and spit on a Congressman, that's where you'd need to be. You'll fly me out there, first class? You gotta be a fecking bishop to get a free upgrade these days.

Sure Father, anything. I love Michele.

Ok, here's what I need you to do. Got a pencil and paper? Good. Take this down.

[the conversation continues for several minutes, with Marcus writing furiously]

Got that? Okay, I'll meet you at National.

It's called Reagan now, Father.

Oh hell, I suppose it is. Apostate Irishman. Goodbye.

Thank you, Father. Goodbye.

Technorati Tags: Michele Bachmann, exorcism

Opera Buffa

Boys and girls, Spot read an article or blog post recently (he can't find it back to link to) that called the Clinton impeachment fiasco an "opera buffa." That reminded Spot of an email he got a couple of years ago telling Spot about just such a production:


Next fall the Metropolitan Opera in New York is scheduled to produce an opera commemorating Bill Clinton's daunting experiences in the White House.

Composed by Giuliani Veritas (in Italian), it was commissioned by Jesse Helms in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts:

LA BUBBA VITA.

Act I.

The Situation: Bill Clinton has been elected President of the United States by an overwhelming margin. The Republicans are devastated, angry and are trying to find their way back to power.

As the curtain rises on the opera, the House Republicans are meeting with Ken Starr with the object of trying to find a way to remove Clinton from the Presidency.

Opening chorale, "We Must Find a Way" (Creato grandissimo floozi scandala) is sung as a sextet. In an impressive recitative, Tom DeLay sings "Where Will We Find a Helper?" (Dredgi uppulia una Granda Bimbo). The House Republicans exit.

Paula Jones enters stage right with a mirror, singing her plaintive aria "Why Can't I Find a Man?" (Mia schnozola es humongo). Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich enter from the other wing. They spot Paula and sing the duet "Why Not Her?" (La floozi perfecta). They meet and take Paula to a small cafe where they hatch their plot in hushed tones. Paula tells them of her meeting in a hotel with Clinton years earlier and how her fortunes have collapsed since then. DeLay and Gingrich offer to help. They sing the aria "Your Luck has Changed" (Nozjobbo e'rewardo).

Act II.

The House Republicans reconvene with the news of Paula's revelations.

They sing in jubilation "We Must Tell the World" (Fono tabloido). The rear curtain raises to reveal the Chorus of Media who sing the chorale "Tell Us More, But Only the Truth" (Sexio scandala hypo sweepi).

Gingrich enters with Pat Robertson. They sing the duet "He Must Go" (Hypocriti pious crappola). Robertson offers time on his television program to expose the charges.

At the House Republicans' suggestion, Paula initiates a lawsuit. The Paula Jones scandal becomes the topic of conversation throughout the country. The Chorus of Lawyers enters from the right to sing the jubilant grand chorale "We Must do Our Duty" (Multi, multi grande moola).

Ken Starr meets with the House Republicans to plan the next steps. They sing the aria "We Will Save the Country" (Sleezi connivo, la media succisttuppo). Starr promises to convene a grand jury which will send charges to the Congress. He sings "The Truth Will be Known" (Whitewater non starto, il probo la floozy epidemio).

The Chorus of Lawyers sings a reprise of "We Must Do Our Duty" (Multi, multi grande moola) as the act ends.

Act III.

In the first Scene, Linda Tripp enters the stage arm in arm with Ken Starr. She is wearing a headset and singing "Monica is My Dearest Friend" (Io sono la wiccida witchi occidenta). She tells Starr about the secret tapes that she has made of conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Starr takes them from her and sings "We've Got Him Now" (Presidente droppo pantaloni). Starr hurries off to the Grand Jury to call Monica as a witness.

In Scene 2, Monica enters the grand jury room where the Chorus of Lawyers asks her questions. They sing the recitative "How Did It Happen?" (Panti thongo, la flashi). Monica sings the long, passionate aria "We Were Meant for Each Other" (Nonsmoko El Pruducto, Phalli symboglio).

In Scene 3, Hillary and Bill are sitting in the Lincoln Bedroom talking about the revelations about Monica. Hillary sings "I Will Stand By You" (Tu jercho estupido, io removo tu equippamento). Bill replies with "She Was the Only One" (Non conto Gennifer, Paula, piu multi bimbo forgetta). They embrace.


You'll have to go see the production to learn the denouement. Spot wishes he had an author to credit.


Technorati tags: Clinton impeachment, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, Ken Star, Tom DeLay

Right where we want them!?

We've got Iran right where we want it. Addicted to oil. According to Tom Friedman anyway. In his Friday column titled The Oil-Addicted Ayatollahs (behind the firewall at the NYT alas), we are treated to Friedman's latest charming mental collapse. Here's the lede:

There may be only one thing dumber than getting addicted to consuming oil as a country — and that is getting addicted to selling it. Because getting addicted to selling oil can make your country really stupid, and if the price of oil suddenly drops, it can make your people really revolutionary. That’s the real story of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union — it overdosed on oil — and it could end up being the real story of Iran, if we’re smart.

Tommy continues:

How Russia deals with its oil and gas windfall [because of the currently high prices] is going to be a huge issue. But today I’d like to focus on how the Soviet Union was killed, in part, by its addiction to oil, and on how we might get leverage with Iran, based on its own addiction.

Economists have long studied this phenomenon, but I got focused on it here in Moscow after chatting with Vladimir Mau, the president of Russia’s Academy of National Economy. I mentioned to him that surely the Soviet Union died because oil fell to $10 a barrel shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev took office, not because of anything Ronald Reagan did. Actually, Professor Mau said, it was “high oil prices” that killed the Soviet Union. The sharp rise in oil prices in the 1970s deluded the Kremlin into overextending subsidies at home and invading Afghanistan abroad — and then the collapse in prices in the ’80s helped bring down the overextended empire.

What? Spot was sure that it was Ronald Reagan who single-handedly brought down the Russkies. You could ask Jonah Goldberg!

So here's what we do:

So if oil prices fall sharply again, Iran’s regime will have to take away many benefits from many Iranians, as the Soviets had to do. For a regime already unpopular with many of its people, that could cause all kinds of problems and give rise to an Ayatollah Gorbachev. We know how that ends. “Just look at the history of the Soviet Union,” Professor Mau said.

In short, the best tool we have for curbing Iran’s influence is not containment or engagement, but getting the price of oil down in the long term with conservation and an alternative-energy strategy. Let’s exploit Iran’s oil addiction by ending ours.

Tommy, you're a genius! You probably shouldn't have put it in the newspaper though, because the Iranian government might read it. Then the cat would be out of the bag!

Let's cut our oil consumption by say, 20% on Monday. Not convenient? How about a year from Monday? Won't work either, eh? Maybe a decade from Monday?

Maybe in a score of years, Spotty. And don't forget that the US is not the only net oil consumer. China and India and the rest of the developing world have a voracious appetite for the stuff, too. That's why the prices are so high. Or as Mr. Friedman might say, the world is getting flatter!

Thanks for the reality check, grasshopper. Spot has become very impressed with your thinking lately. So maybe we don't really have Iran over a barrel, so to speak, after all. You know, we might have to talk to them.


Technorati tags: Tom Friedman, addiction to oil

Lawyer Jennifer gets testy!

Who is Jennifer, Spotty?

Well, grasshopper, Jennifer is a lawyer at Faegre and Benson here in Minneapolis (it looks like lawyer Jennifer is actually in F&B's Colorado office). She clouded up and rained all over another Jennifer, Jennifer Laycock, a/k/a "The Lactivist." The Lactivist's sin? Well apparently she is offering for a sale a t-shirt with the legend "the other white milk" to support her activism for breastfeeding mothers. In addition to being a subversive, and probably a godless communist, the Lactivist is stealing, according to lawyer Jennifer, the valuable property of the National Pork Board.

Oh, say it ain't so, Spotty! Oh, loathsome Lactivist!

That's what lawyer Jennifer claims, grasshopper. But the whole thing has a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song feel to it. [Spot clears his throat] When I was called to the bar . . . . Sorry.

Lawyer Jennifer says that the Lactivist, low and devious person that she is, is guilty, inter alia, of trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition against the pure-as-the-driven-snow National Pork Board. THE NATIONAL PORK BOARD, can you imagine? This is obviously blasphemy, and it's probably treasonous as well!

Excuse me, Spotty, what does inter alia mean?

Ah, grasshopper, it is a fancy way of saying "among other things," and it is often used by lawyers when they want to sound smart and not foreclose anything they might think up later to throw at the object of their cease and desist letter. But let's spend a moment looking at the three claims mentioned.

This won't take long, will it Spotty?

No, actually it won't grasshopper. Let's take the trademark infringement and trademark dilution claims first. In the abstract, the Lactivist could have done one or the other, but not both.

Trademark infringement occurs when an infringer adopts a trademark in the same or similar channels of distribution of similar products that is "confusingly similar" to the registered mark (which the NPB has; you can read all about it in lawyer Jennifer's letter), and which causes "a likelihood of confusion" in the minds of a potential consumer.

Pork and t-shirts? That seems like kind of a stretch, Spotty.

Yes grasshopper, it does! But lawyers are an inventive bunch. (Actually, the NPB does have a registration for The Other White Meat in Class 25, which is clothing.) But it's pretty interesting grasshopper, because the trademark application in Class 25 was made in 2005, and the trademark registration was issued in August of last year. Boy, lawyer Jennifer couldn't wait to take that sucker out for a test drive!

Now, in the trademark application, it was claimed that the National Pork Board started using The Other White Meat in Class 25 in 1997, but it's a little vague as to the date in that year. It would be great fun, boys and girls, to test that allegation to see if they can prove any 1997 use, because things you tell the Patent and Trademark Office in a trademark application are like they are under oath. Being inaccurate or fibbing is really a bad thing. It can affect the validity of your whole registration! Talk about a day-ruiner!

All of this aside, it seems pretty absurd to think that a t-shirt consumer would be confused between the Lactivist on one hand, and the NATIONAL PORK BOARD on the other. National Pork Board, Spotty says you're selling yourselves short!

But lawyer Jennifer says even if there is no confusion, there is dilution of the famous trademark owned by the National Pork Board. Talk about turning on a dime! There is a federal statute, boys and girls, protecting so-called "famous marks" against dilution even when there is no confusion. But lawyer Jennifer wants it both ways: it's confusing and it's not confusing. Paging Franz Kafka!

One of lawyer Jennifer's big problems, with either theory, is that The Other White Meat may be the marketing department's dream, but it's a pig--pun intended--as a trademark. Why? It is terribly, obviously descriptive. What the NPB is trying to do here is take a phrase out of the lexicon and make it property. Taglines like this make notoriously weak trademarks unless they have been used for decades. Spotty will bet you a box of kibble that somebody else used "the other something" before the NPB did. And NPB hasn't used the phrase so notoriously--certainly to the exclusion of everyone else--that it has acquired ownership of the combination of the words.

Descriptive marks are only entitled to the narrowest of protection, if they are protected at all. In this situation, the Lactivist is not even using the same phrase, and she isn't using it as a trademark for a t-shirt. It's just a descriptive saying for breast milk, for crying out loud.

Finally, the Lactivist is engaging in "unfair competition?" Spot knows that sounds crazy, boys and girls, but "unfair competition" is a holy phrase to trademark lawyers. It covers things like stealing the goodwill or good name of a party, or the palming off of goods of one party as the goods of another. It's one of the nuts-and-bolts things a trademark lawyer always claims in a cease and desist letter; it's a form of invocation, or maybe incantation.

Anyway, Spot is sure that the NPB is trembling before the commercial might of the Lactivist.

It gets a little "inside baseball" at this point, boys and girls, but the thing that lawyer Jennifer should have done was to seek the agreement of the Lactivist that putting the saying "the other white milk" on a t-shirt was not intended to trade on the goodwill of the National Pork Board or infringe its trademark. My guess is that the Lactivist would have agreed--probably would still agree--to that. The NPB would have demonstrated that it is policing its trademark, and it would avoid a potentially nasty infringement suit that it could well lose, not to mention the potential loss of the registration itself, on descriptiveness or other grounds.

The NPB and lawyer Jennifer are counting on the fact the the Lactivist probably cannot put up a fight. People like the Lactivist usually can't and don't.

Spotty, you have a real bee in the bonnet about this!

Yes, grasshopper, Spotty does. But the increasing rapacity of the trademark bar threatens both popular culture and the English language.

Update: Spot almost forgot to give a thump of the tail to Norwegianity for bringing this to Spot's attention!

Technorati tags: The Other White Meat, breast feeding

What kind of bird is this?

It's nice to be out in the great outdoors, isn't it, boys and girls? What that you say? It's cold? Nonsense! What kind of bird is this, boys and girls?

Spotty, that's easy! It's a common loon!

Ah, grasshopper, you are half right. It's a common scold. The Latin name is communis rixatrix. This one is an excellent specimen. The easiest way to identify the common scold it by her cry. Actually she has several; we'll just focus today on a few of the most important ones.

Right now, she is making one of her more strident vocalizations: hellinnahandbasket hellinnahandbasket hellinnahandbasket. This piercing call can be made continuously for hours on end. It's a trial for the other inhabitants of the forest. Luckily, most of them are able to eventually tune it out.

Today, the common scold seems to be in some kind of snit because of the lack of discipline of young birds by their parents. Here's the lede in a column today:

There's a childhood epidemic sweeping Minnesota and the nation. Its warning signs aren't fever or skin rashes. The symptoms are behavioral -- and unmistakable.

The common scold, we'll call her Katie, believes that children would be better behaved if they were just punished and told by their parents "NO" more often. The idea has superficial appeal. Boys and girls, when Spotty barks "NO" at you what happens?

We learn not to do whatever it is you said "NO" about when you are in the room, Spotty. That's supposed to be the lesson, isn't it?

Exactly, grasshopper! You learn that the dominant individual can control the behavior of the others. It doesn't teach you about why you should refrain from doing something: the lesson is dominance and submission. Now there is a role for that, especially in very young children to, among other things, keep the safe. But, one of the other lessons taught is that it is good to be dominant because then you can make the rules.

Spotty says it is far better to teach children empathy, a quality that they are born with, but which can be extinguished by authoritarian upbringing. A sense of empathy--sometimes also known as a conscience--serves much better when the authority is not around.

Give Spotty the empathetic adult over the dominance-submissive type every time.

One of the common scold's other frequently used vocalization is NoNoNoNoNoNo! This is often used around adolescents of the species. You can pick out these adolescents by their hunched shoulders and failure to make eye contact. They often have, well, a henpecked appearance.

And boys and girls, before we go in for a mug of hot chocolate, there is just one more call that Spot wants to mention. It is gointohell gointohell gointohell. This is the sound the common scold makes when she is distressed about what is on television.


Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, common scold

Even Spotty knew, too

Via Buzzflash, here's part of a post from a blogger named Jurrasicpork:

The Achilles’ heel of “The Warrior,” as she is known, is the war. She expressed outrage about Iraq, but ended up sounding like a mother whose teenage son has not cleaned up his room: “The president has said this is going to be left to his successor ... and I think it’s the height of irresponsibility, and I really resent it.”

She uttered the most irritating and disingenuous nine words in politics: “If we had known then what we know now. ...”

Jim Webb knew. Barack Obama knew. Even I knew, for Pete’s sake. The administration’s trickery was clear in real time.

Hillary didn’t have the nerve to oppose a popular president on a national security issue after 9/11, and she feared being cast as an antiwar hippie when she ran. Now she feels she can’t simply say she made a bad decision. And that makes her seem conniving — not a good mix with nurturing.

Jurrasicpork was commenting on Hillary Clinton's recent trip to Iowa. Maureen Dowd expressed similar sentiments recently in a behind-the-firewall column at the NYT.

John McCain's surge idea was meant to put some daylight between him and the Prezinut on Iraq, but then Bush went and took him up on it--much to McCain's surprise, Spot's sure. Hillary's posturing is similar in its cravenness.


Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Iraq war

Molly Ivins: RIP?

Somehow, Spot doesn't think that Molly Ivins, who died today from breast cancer, will rest peacefully. She never did anything peacefully in her life. Some of the old timers from her Minneapolis Tribune days still tell Molly Ivins stories. She did everything with noise and brass. God love her.

One of Spot's favorite Molly Ivins lines was the lede of a column she wrote on a visit to Canada several years ago:

Ottawa - Being Canadian is like living next door to the Simpsons.

Update February 1st: In her obituary today in the Strib, the story is recounted of her long and bright red winter coat. What wasn't reported was that someone in the newsroom told Ivins, a six-footer, that she looked like the Foshay Tower at sunset. (Spot heard Ivins repeat that story several years ago.)

Also corrected the reference to the Tribune, which is where Molly worked, not the Star.


Technorati tag: Molly Ivins

Can Don be far behind?

From today's NYT:

FRANKFURT, Jan. 31 — In the most serious legal challenge yet to the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret transfers of terrorism suspects, a German court has issued an arrest warrant for 13 people in connection with the mistaken kidnapping and jailing of a German citizen of Lebanese descent.

Remember, boys and girls, Rumsfeld declined to go to a NATO conference recently, and Spotty said that he thought that a German prosecutor's consideration of war crimes charges against him was the reason. Who was the boss of these thirteen? Don Rumsfeld. Aided and abetted by the likes of Professor "Organ Failure" Yoo and our own William Delahunty.


Technorati Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, William Delahunty

The Prezinut seeks a little guidance

Uh, Uncle Dick? Can I see you for a minute?

Sure, Junior, I mean Mr. President, come on in and have a seat.

I shore appreciate this. [pause] Dick, will you turn yer recorder off, please?

Oh sure. I just forgot. [click]

Thanks. I just remember the last time I talked into yer flowers here. Scooter and Addington were makin' jokes for weeks. Made me kinda' sore.

Well, boys will be boys!

Yeh, I guess. Got daughters myself, so I don't know. Speakin' of Scooter--things don't look so good for him, do they?

No, Ari kind of ratted him out. Damn shame really. You know you will have to bail him out, don't you, Mr. President?

Ah know. But ahm a little mad at Scooter. I think he is trying to throw Rover under the bus. On the other hand, that Fitzgerald fella is trying to throw you under the bus. What a world! Say wasn't "Fitzgerald" that Jack Kennedy's middle name? Might be somethin' there. We outta check into it.

Sure, Mr. President, we'll do that. What's really on you mind?

Well, Dick, I don't exactly know. But I got a bad feeling about this Iran deal. I think we may be stickin' our peckers where they don't belong, if you follow my meanin'.

No Mr. President, I really don't.

Ah mean, that President Ahm-bad-inna-head, or whatever his name is, is kind of making' fun o' me.

[sighs] Mr. President, you're a bigger man than he is.

Ah know. I jes think mebbe we git further if we just play cool and talk to 'em.

That's a really bad idea, Mr. President. What if we reduced tensions and there was still an Islamic government in Iran? They'd still be influential in Iraq. You know how the Iranians are already talking about taking a bigger role in Iraq. And you've already threatened them about that.

Yeah, that's right, I did. You know, invitin' Iran into Iraq is kinda our own fault, with the invasion and all. Now that I think about it, it's mostly your fault!

My fault? This is exactly what we want!

It is?

Sure. Iran has always been the country standing in our way of complete dominance of the Middle East. You must see that. We have to provoke Iran so we have an excuse to take them out.

But Dick, we got 150,000 troops mired in Iraq and what? 20,000 - 30,000 in Afghanistan, not to mention all these NATO fellas we snookered into goin' there. Iran could hit all of 'em with missiles. And we ain't got nobody left. And the Straits of Whore - Moos, why Bobby Gates was tellin' me those Iranians got a bunch of those Sunburned missiles and could close that sucker down quicker than I can say armadillo. Maybe even sink the carriers I sent there. I gotta tell you Dick, it worries me.

That's why we'll probably have to nuke 'em, Mr. President.

NUKE 'EM? Boy, I don't think I signed up for that!

Well, you shouldn't worry about it. It's really almost out of our--especially your--hands anyway.

God's will, ah guess.

Something like that.

Well, ah think ah will hit the gym and then head upstairs for supper. Ahm glad we could have this talk.

So am I, Mr. President. Have a nice run. Say hello to Condi.


Technorati Tags: Iraq, Iran, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney

The geography of nowhere

James Kunstler has a trenchant post today. It starts out like this:

Martha Stewart was not an accident of history. She came along in the late 20th century as a kind of spirit guide to a society whose bad choices and misinvestments had led to the wholesale destruction of any place in America that people called home. And by this I mean the towns, neighborhoods, and city districts of our land, not just the individual dwellings.

By the 1980s, America had been converted, with monstrous efficiency, into what I have called a geography of nowhere, a panorama of identical highway strips, malls, big box warehouses, fried food out-parcels, and free parking wastelands -- all serving the endless new subdivision pods of single family houses. The ultimate result was a landscape full of places no longer worth caring about.

The program was carried out ruthlessly by big corporations and their hand-maidens, the road-builders, the house-builders, and the brotherhood of traffic engineers, but it was fully supported by the public at large and their elected local officials on the planning and zoning boards. It was both an "emergent" economic ecology -- a systemic response to decades of cheap oil and favorable geopolitics -- and a consciously mapped-out attempt to create a kind of Utopia, in this case a suburban Utopia of Happy Motoring. Whatever it was, nothing like it had ever been seen before.

Boys and girls, those of you who live in Edina anyway, does that sound like any place you know?

The historic neighborhoods of Edina--not just the Country Club, but South Harriet Park and perhaps other neighborhoods as well, are under an assault that the city's leadership is apparently indifferent to doing anything about.


Technorati Tags: Edina, redevelopment

The REAL McCain

There is a short video at this site that you really should see, boys and girls.

The REAL McCain

Getting a referral

Ring. Ring. Kathy Kersten here.

Oh Katie, I mean Kathy, I need your help.

Who is this?

It's Marcus Bachmann.

You want my help Marcus?

Yes, you're a Catholic, right?

I am a Catholic. You know that very well Marcus. You think I'm in league with the anti-Christ.

[evasively] Never mind that. Can you help me?

An evangelical seeking the help of a Catholic. Now that's rich. What's on your mind?

It's about Michele. I think she is possessed by Satan.

[hysterical laughter] Sorry. What makes you think that, Marcus? Michele's performance at the State of the Union address?

Well, that, but there are other things, too. She thinks that Jim Ramstad is possessed.

You're just making sport of me aren't you, Marcus.

No, I swear! I'm desperate.

All right. You do sound worried. How can I help?

You Catholics know about exorcism and stuff, right?

What? I have no idea why you're talking about.

Oh come on, Katie. Michele and I saw the movie. In fact, that may be part of her problem.

It's not something we usually discuss with apost--, I mean evangelicals.

Please Katie! This is a Republican House seat we're talking about here.

Well, that does emphasize the gravity of the problem. I do know a little about exorcism, I guess.

Thank you! Thank you! Can you recommend a good exorcist?

[long pause] Katie?

Years ago, when I had some trouble with--, well never mind. I have no personal experience with this stuff, you understand, but I have heard about someone.

Oh please tell me who it is!

All right. But you didn't get this from me, okay? [pause] Okay?

Okay.

There is an old, old priest who lives at the rectory for the Cathedral over in St. Paul. He spent several years at the Vatican. He knows the procedures inside and out.

That's great. What's his name?

Promise to keep me out of it?

Sure.

All right. He's an Irishman, named O'Connor. Father Seamus O'Connor. I should tell you that he believes in fairies and leprechauns, too.

Katie are you sure this is the guy?

I'm sure.

[sighs] What choice do I have? Will he expect anything of me?

He'll expect you to convert to Catholicism. We don't undertake this kind of heavy lifting for apostates.

I'm not sure I can do that.

Promise him you'll convert. I suppose you can back out later. But it will put your immortal soul at risk.

Hmmm. Damned if I do and damned if I don't! But I'll do anything for Michele, and the Republican Party, of course!

I am awed by your commitment, Marcus.

Thank you, Katie. I'll give Father O'Connor a call. Not a word to anyone, okay? Goodbye.

Mum's the word. Godspeed, Marcus.


[a little later]

Ring. Ring. This is Michael Brodkorb.

Kathy Kersten here. You won't believe what I am going to tell you.


Technorati Tags: Michele Bachmann, Katherine Kersten, exorcism