A Thought for Good Friday

We interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to direct you to some words of wisdom from Mr. Charles Pierce on this Good Friday:

For those of us of the Papist persuasion, Good Friday services always came as two hours of existential dread. Purple swatches all over the sanctuary. Gloomy hymns. Latin intoned with an extra-special kind of lugubrious Lugosiness. More to the point of the past week, the Good Friday liturgy was a carnival of anti-Semitism, an extended exercise in Jew-bashing so egregious that even the Vatican came to notice it several centuries on. Now, I know I sat through this. I know Russert, and Matthews, and Maureen Dowd, and Pat Buchanan -- and JFK and John Kerry, as well -- also did. This wasn't the improvised rhetoric of one pastor in one church. This was the formalized celebration of Christ's Passion, performed in exactly the same way in front of millions of people in thousands of churches all over the world. So here's the thing, Mo and Tim and Chris. (I leave out Buchanan because, hell, he probably thinks the liturgy was too diverse.) Did sitting through this make you anti-Semitic? And to what degree? And have you ever rejected and renounced 2,000 years of popes -- to say nothing of the church over which they presided -- because they authorized this dangerous thooleramawnery? If you haven't, you should probably lay off Barack Obama and his minister, is all's I'm saying.

While we at TWDQ adhere to a franchise that's a revolution and a divorce removed from Roman Catholicism, we offer a hearty ecumenical "Amen."

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question.

Reason #32108 Why Baseball is Better than Football

We interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to bring you yet another reason why baseball is the Best. Game. Ever.

La Velle E. Neal III's Twins Insider blog featured a game note about speedster Carlos Gomez, an outfielder acquired in the Johan Santana trade:

Go-Go Gomez was at it again in the seventh inning. He beat out a slow two-hopper to short - by a step - for an infield hit. With a runner on third, Gomez took off for second and didn’t draw a throw - but he dove into second anyway! The middle infielders never left their positions!

Second base umpire Tim Tschida (what a coincidence) waited until Gomez got up and made eye contact with him before he emphatically signaled him safe. Hilarious…

“He needed to slide into second base or he would have ran into the left fielder,” one pressbox wag said.

Even though it's snowing at the moment, Opening Day's a week from Monday.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Today Sen. Clinton released her daily schedules from eight years as First Lady.

Naturally, the press spent the day scrutinizing them to assess the extent of her efforts on universal health care, her involvement in meetings with foreign leaders and other dignitarities, and her extensive charity work, since these may shed insight about her experience with these issues and show her to be a capable, well-qualified candidate for president. Right?

Um, not so much:

Top AP Politics headlines on Yahoo News
- Wednesday, March 19th, 2008, 9:30 p.m . CDT

• First lady Clinton and the intern crisis AP - 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
• Clinton calls on Obama to back primaries AP - Wed Mar 19, 6:51 PM ET
• Obama: Trust me to end the war AP - Wed Mar 19, 7:05 PM ET
• Today on the presidential campaign trail AP - Wed Mar 19, 5:15 PM ET
• Lewinsky and the first lady AP - 2 hours, 41 minutes ago

So here's the black beret and blue dress edition of This Week's Discussion Question:

Can we elect a new media this November, too?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "Hey, what was she doing the day Vince Foster..." or "Excuse me, I hafta go throw up."

Discuss.

Update: On second thought, it's perfectly fine if you hafta go throw up.

Put a Candle in the Window

We interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to bring you these figures:

five years

3,990 dead U.S. soldiers

175 dead British soldiers

89,322 dead Iraqi citizens

$500 billion to $3 trillion

zero weapons of mass destruction

zero ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida

zero impeachments


one candle in the window

Peace.

Just Say No

We interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to direct you to Washington Monthly's new issue, "No Torture, No Exceptions". The editors introduce this collection of essays with this bold statement:

"In most issues of the Washington Monthly, we favor articles that we hope will launch a debate. In this issue we seek to end one."

Amen.

The next time somebody who's watched too much "24" tries to tell you there are special circumstances that require "enhanced interrogations", direct them to veteran FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan's piece on how interrogations really work.

The next time you question a presidential candidate in a debate--yeah, you Timmy--you might ask them if they'll not only abolish the use of torture but will seek accountability for all those complicit in dreaming it up and signing off on it. (Barack, Hillary, and John: "Yes, and a lifetime gig in a nice, comfortable prison cell will be waiting for each of them," is the correct answer. "Yes, and we'll hand them over to The Hague," is also an acceptable response.)

No torture, no exceptions.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question.