Mr. Sullivan decries the falling standards of modern Catholicism:

In Onaiyekan, you have a classic Benedict/JP II Archbishop: dumb as a post, sheltered from the actual debate in the West, incapable of argument, and pathetic as a spokesman. The problem with the theoconservative take-over in the Catholic priesthood is not so much its extremism as its mediocrity. And it is mediocre because it has been trained not to thin[k], not to argue, and not to engage the modern world. It has been trained solely for obedience.

As a Victorian reviewer once said of Shakespeare’s Anthony & Cleopatra: Soooo unlike the home life of our own dear Queen!

So, to review, the wingnuts took a seat that would have been a win for the Republicans, so much so that the seat had not gone to a Democrat since Reconstruction and the Democratic candidates had been getting about 35% of the vote the last few elections, ran the Republican out of the race, brought their own special kind of crazy to town, and the voters rejected them handily.

Even I didn’t expect Owens to win. I seriously hope they pursue this strategy nationwide.

In other news, a Goldman employee has finally lost a job, with Corzine out in NJ. I know nothing about the election there, nor the one in Virginia, but I do know that Terry McAuliffe is not Governor. That is a good thing.

The only really bad thing is the repeal of the gay marriage law in Maine. Other than that, I’d be hard pressed to draw any conclusions from yesterday other than that Sarah Palin is still a loser. I’m sure that won’t stop the right-wing hacks from claiming this has been a bad result for Obama, but let’s face it- everything is good news for Republicans.

The lord clearly loves me and wants me to be happy, because she has given me Erick Erickson and Robert Stacey McCain. No links because I have no idea what kind of spam you get as a reward for joining Erick’s group.

You may remember my reaction when the “treacherous bastards” at the National Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race—15 months before the primary!

Erick Erickson of Red State started a Facebook group to protest the NRSC’s endorsement of Crist, and Erick just sent this message to group members:

Subject: They are listening

I’ve been getting all sorts of emails begging me to shut this group down.
Instead, please consider inviting ten friends each.
The NRSC will not listen to us unless we help shut down their fundraising. You can help.
Thanks,
Erick

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP.

Meanwhile, there is a new blog HQ for the grassroots anti-NRSC protest: NOT ONE RED CENT.

I cannot begin to describe how awesome this is for the Democratic party. In all sincerity, we should wish Erick and Robert Stacey success in this mission to chase every bit of heterodoxy out of the GOP. If their mission succeeds, the purist fringe will be happy. Democrats will be happy. The country will never worry about another Republican majority. As far as I can tell the only loser would be David Frum, who we will know as the miserable kid in the closet whom residents of utopia occasionally must visit lest we forget our privileged state.

However, I must announce with sadness that Erick’s unbelievably stupid purity crusade proves a favorite theorem of mine wrong, and by ‘wrong’ I don’t mean weather forecast wrong but, rather, laughably, starkly one hundred eighty degrees off base. I’m talking peak wingnut. Maybe worse.

You see, a year ago I posted some thoughts about Erick Erickson’s amusing and mostly futile efforts to carve a bottom-up niche in a top-down party. They still seem like ok posts until I closed with this.

It will only be good when when the party treats well-intentioned members trying to effect change from the inside like a squeaky wheel rather than like an unhammered nail.

Before my credibility sinks any further, I formally retract my statement and welcome any formal inquiry into whether I was drunk or high when I wrote that post.

It sure is tragic that African Press International, a distinguished media group whose only apparent outlet is a recent free account on blogspot, never released those damaging Obama tapes. One shudders to imagine the horrors revealed if someone would only forward their bank account information to cover a small transfer fee.

Marilyn Musgrave, keeping it classy:

Bitterness generated by the bruising battle between Betsy Markey and Marilyn Musgrave apparently lingers days after voters decided the winner of the 4th Congressional District.

Incumbent Republican Musgrave, who lost to Democrat Markey by a 56 to 44 percent margin Tuesday, has yet to call and congratulate Markey on her win.

Musgrave also hasn’t conceded the race, said Markey spokesman Ben Marter. “She has yet to admit defeat,” he said. “It’s a little bizarre.”

Calls to Musgrave’s campaign and congressional office went unanswered Friday.

She is probably waiting for God to intervene, and she isn’t about to give up on lost causes. Musgrave, if you remember, is the lunatic who said the following during the Schiavo affair:

“When we talk about a permanent vegetative state, I am offended by that. Terri (Schiavo) smiles and acknowledges the people that love her when they come to see her. She cries when they leave. How heartless are we to call somebody like Terri Schiavo a vegetable? What are we thinking?”

She was such an ass that Michael Schiavo took to campaigning against her:

The fireworks began before the candidates’ debate even started. Last week Michael Schiavo took a seat only 15 feet away from Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave—all the better to taunt her. She had been an outspoken advocate of what Schiavo considered government intrusion in his wife Terri’s right-to-die case last year. When Musgrave’s camp objected to Schiavo’s presence, one of the event hosts tried, unsuccessfully, to have a cop force him to change seats. Though Musgrave wasn’t asked about Terri during the debate, Schiavo had already met his goal—evoking his wife’s case, and the privacy concerns it raised, for the press and the public. “What you went through is the epitome of what’s wrong with the country,” one man told him afterward.

Maybe Musgrave thinks her bid for re-election isn’t dead, it is just in a persistent vegetative state. Regardless, she won’t be missed.

(via)

Even though so much of the time, Tucker Carlson is a total jackass, there are times I really like him. This is one of them. Slate has a back and forth between many Republicans about the future of the GOP, and in one of them, Doug Kmiec, an Obama supporter and Republican, suggested that for the most part the GOP should ditch abortion as an issue. This appalled Ross Douthat, who launched a rather snippy response Kmiec’s way, which then led to this sort of whimpering response from Kmiec.

Tucker watched the entire thing unfold, and then offered his contribution:

Hey, Doug. Toughen up. Seriously. I’ve read suicide notes that were less passive-aggressive than this. Let’s review what actually happened: You argued that Obama is not a pro-choice extremist. Ross disagreed. Rather than respond with a counterpoint, you got hysterical, dismissing Ross as a hater, even fretting about the future of his soul.

Come on. Get some perspective. And for God’s sake, stop whining. For a moment there, you reminded me of the McCain campaign, bitching about “sexism” when people started to ask tough questions of Sarah Palin. Republicans didn’t used to talk this way. Let’s stop the trend now, starting with you.

I understand it must have hurt when Ross accused you of shilling for Obama. On the other hand, he’s right. You did shill for Obama. That’s not Ross’ fault. Don’t blame him.

But if you are going to blame him, do it directly, like a man, without all the encounter-group talk and Pope quotes. People often attack the religious right, sometimes with justification. But as you just reminded us, there is nothing in the world more annoying than the religious left.

Now, granted- I think Kmiec is right about the abortion issue, and I do think Douthat was being kind of a dick in his over-the-top response to him, but you gotta love the Carlson reponse.

On the whole, the best piece in the whole series so far is this Kathleen Parker broadside against the Palin wing:

Palin covered her inadequacies with folksy charm and by drumming up a class war, turning her audiences not just against elites but against the party’s own educated members. The movement created by that superelite, but never elitist, William F. Buckley Jr. was handed over to Joe Six-Pack. Know-nothingness was no longer a stigma, but a badge of honor.

The Republican Party’s Baghdad Bobism with regard to Palin, a denial so pernicious that party operatives were willing to let her sit a heartbeat away from the presidency in a time of war and financial collapse, revealed what really ails the party. The “P Factor” isn’t a single person but a sickness that will have to be acknowledged and cured—Republicans will be reciting their newly tailored principles only to themselves.

First, raise the bar.

Can a brother get a “Heh, indeedy?”

CNN reporting that Republican Senator Ted Stevens was found guilty on every count. This election just got better.

Links when they become available.

*** Update ***

CNN:

A jury found U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska guilty Monday of all seven counts in his federal corruption trial.

The jury found Stevens guilty of “knowingly and willfully” scheming to conceal on Senate disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from an Alaska-based oil industry contractor.

Stevens faces a maximum sentence of up to to 35 years in prison—five years for each of the seven counts.

Legal experts note the judge has the discretion to give Stevens as little as no jail time and probation when he is sentenced.

Of course, it goes without saying that this is excellent news for John McCain.

Kevin Drum.

Let’s summarize the past couple of days: (a) Politico reports that La Palin has spent $150,000 on campaign outfits, (b) John McCain’s brother calls 911 to complain about a traffic jam and then curses at the operator for telling him to get off the line, (c) the New York Times reports that Palin also spent $30,000 or so on hair and makeup over a period of two weeks, and (d) a white woman who claimed she was attacked by a black Obama supporter admits that the whole thing was a hoax.

He was also endorsed by al Qaeda. Plus, some of McCain’s own advisors are abandoning the campaign and endorsing Obama. Then there is the possibility that McCain is hanging out in Pennsylvania because the Obama campaign played him out of competing in competitive states.

By the way, wasn’t the second investigation into Palin’s abuse of power due to issue a report one of these days?