Hey, it's more reasoned than Rod Dreher.

Molly Ivens is still writing? She'd disappeared so thoroughly that I'd assumed she'd retired or died or been put behind some subscribers only firewall years ago.

Everyone else is going to hell.

Hell is a Molly Ivins column.

I'm looking at the Valley View Christian Church website and I don't see anything about "everyone else is going to hell". Though Molly should be glad if its true since the only thing to read in hell are her columns.

Theocrat huh? Hey OJ - your monarchy idea allows for queens right?

Shelton:

No. Kings only.

Orrin - You left out the best line. In the middle of that column, which is all about Harriet Miers' religion, you will find this:

"If I had my druthers, I wouldn't write about the religion of those in public life, either, as I consider it a most private matter."

Considering the context, that line is wonderful -- in a perverse kind of way. Not every writer would have the nerve to put that in the middle of a column attacking a public figure for her religious beliefs. And the "druthers" from a woman with a degree from one of the fancy women's schools makes it even better.

A friend of mine was rather cross this morning at NPR for a discussion in which they recounted how Miers was raised Catholic, and then a minute later referred to her as "an adult convert to Christianity".

Reminds me of the old joke:

A man dies and is met in Heaven by an angel who shows him around. When the man sees a neighborhood nearby, he asks the angel: "Who lives there?" The angel replies: "The Jews".

When they pass another area, he asks again: "Who lives there?" The angel replies: :"The Zoroastrians."

At the third neighborhood the angel replies: "The Protestants live there." As they approached another area, the angel warned the man to be very quiet. "Why is that?", asked the man. The angel answers: "That's where the Catholics live, but they think they are the only ones here."

Substitute just about any religion for Catholics, and the joke is just as true.

OJ: You are wrong about Kings only:

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) "The Life of King Henry the Fifth" Act I. Scene II. line 38

Archbishop of Canterbury:

Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
That owe yourselves, your lives, and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
To make against your highness’ claim to France
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land:
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish’d then this law; to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land:

==================

By extension, the Salic Law did not apply in England or its colonies which adopted the Common Law, nor did it apply in Louisiana.

I should also point out that the American Monarchy is elective and that all of the criteria for the President are set out in the constitution. Sex is not mentioned.

Jokes and Shakespeare aside, the Miers nomination is so brilliant.

Those people are being set up to attack the nominee on the basis of her religion and that basis alone. It is like watching a well-planned, well executed battle unfold. The enemy is going to do exactly what we want him to do: walk fat, dumb and happy into our killing zone.

Lou:

What's strange though is to watch the neocons, who've spent five years trying to wash off the taint of being anti-Bush because of his religion, charge into that zone as well. Their behavior suggests that the answer to the question that brought Brother Cohen on board at Brothers Judd remains, for the most part, no:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2002/08/can_jews_be_conservatives_1.html

Ivins wrote a column sometime this spring, I believe, stating that the reason why TX is so barbaric with the death penalty is that local DA's are elected, so they want to make a name for themselves by putting down as many murderers as possible. I have yet to see her denouncing Ronnie Earle's shenanigans...

Still, we all owe Molly our gratitude. Without her dedication to convincing national Dems that "Shrub" is the dumbest man alive, he never would have been misunderestimated all the way to the White House.

oj: The Nazis were quite right about one thing: the Roman Catholic Church is the bearer of Jewish culture to the Aryans. Many Christians and Jews usually do not accept this, but the pagans know it well. The answer to the question is yes.

What we have seen from the neocons is secondary to the prejudice that committed Christians are dumb. As is the case of the similar prejudice regarding gun people that's not even close. Rather is is a self-destructive illusion, sort of like the Germans thinking that the Poles were too dumb to crack their codes.

While the older neo-cons have moved into the Republican orbit, they still have a fear that down deep, the Father Coughlin types remain the dog that wags the tail on the fundamentalist right within the party.

Evangelicals may support Israel, but the neocons tend to think they're only doing it under the idea it will hasten the Rapture. So they accept their support with a wary eye and are happy to accept their votes, but have flashbacks to the either 1930s or their last viewing of "Inherit the Wind" whenever someone from that wing of the Republican Party has a chance to actually obtain political power. It's a milder form of the way Democrats tend to treat their African-American constituency, though at least in this case, maintaining the cycle of poverty and dependant voters is not part of the unequal association.

. . . the Roman Catholic Church is the bearer of Jewish culture to the Aryans.

And to everyone else. "Salvation is from the Jews." "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . "

John:

The main difference being who's the majority and who's the minority.

Lou:

But many modern Jews are even contemptuous of Orthodox Jews. It's not a question of whether Judaism is compatible with conservatism--it's inherently conservative--but whether most American Jews even believe much in Judaism anymore.