"We were taught the difference between right and wrong and taught to believe it matters."
Wow, I can't believe I am hearing this moral superiority stuff coming from a Democrat? I thought this argument belonged to the theocrats - who mostly believe the Catholic Church to be the Whore of Babylon etc.
There are plenty of valid reasons to dislike the Clintons (even if I don't share them), but this is ridiculous to the point of being obscene.
Posted by jwrjr at May 29, 2008 07:30 AMMind-boggling.
Posted by Sharkbabe at May 29, 2008 07:45 AMAndrew Sullivan is always an interesting read. He is right about half the time. But no initial supporter of Bush's war of aggression should be giving lectures on morality to anyone.
btw Clare A, Sullivan is not a Democrat, he is a British-style conservative.
Posted by Gay Veteran at May 29, 2008 08:05 AMClinton hate is not about sexism, it is about values, right from wrong, honesty.
Anybody questioning Clinton hate, just look at the michigan and florida mess. Hillary was in NH telling anybody who would listent hat mi/fl did not count, this was a delegate race, she supported iowa and nh's place in the nominating process.
Hillary signed a pledge not to participate in these elections.
Now hillary is running around florida saying that elections that were not supposed to count, that she did not participate in, should count. And if they don't count, then people should vote for mccain (even though the repubs stripped those states as well).
This is precisely where Clinton hate comes from.
Right from Wrong!!!
Shame that so many of her supporters cannot see this reality.
Posted by at May 29, 2008 08:16 AMHello Scott/Jane/anonymous poster at 8:16 a.m. Do you ever have anything else to say? This is the only comment you post. It's like someone hit you on the forehead with a board while you were thinking about this and now you can think of nothing else. I'm sorry you're so stuck.
Posted by Barry at May 29, 2008 08:51 AMSpeaking as someone raised in a "traditional Catholic household" as Sullivan puts it, his point is crap. What Dowd, Kelly, Russert, Matthews, Sullivan et al. have been playing at these past 16 years has very little to do with any sensibilities of right and wrong. It's the corrupt tendency of people with a little bit of influence trying to play arbiter of our culture and politics. Nothing more.
Posted by Barry at May 29, 2008 08:56 AMIsn't it a terrific "coincidence" that the vast majority of theists practice the exact same religion as their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.?
And with hundreds of religions to choose from, their "thoughtful" ancestors handed down the only "true" religion.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 29, 2008 09:01 AMwe get the government that we ask for and accept. andy sounds like he is sweet on tweety!!! catholics are the biggest group of hypocrits i have ever had to be involved with. yes i was a catholic, under continued pressure to be catholic, from a father who was a drunk, child abuser, sexually(not me) and physically(my brother and myself). he hung out with priests, always told us that if he did not have kids he would be a priest. can you imagine that? some disconnect there!!! i saw the priests that would come down to our florida home and spend a month on vacation. they drank until(really drank) until midnight then sober up for mass. they were always hitting on my mom, trying to separate her from my dad when they went out. one friday one of them manuevered my mom away from the others at the dog racing, he wanted a hotdog, she remined him it was friday. he said that's okay, i dispensed you for the day. what about him? i remember a pictured of one of them at a german restaurant with him faced buried in the breasts of a very busty waitress. he even had a picture taken of this and this is what i saw!!!!!! no priests are just like all non priests and other catholics. they have their eye on heaven, what it takes to get there(in their mind) and in the mean time they live a full life. no worries about money, where their next meal will come from, a roof over their head, education if they want it. catholics are mindless, they would believe in voodoo if they were told, no thought processing allowed. the immaculate conception, hah! that wafer(produced by big corporation) body and blood, hah! these people will believe anything!!! if it suits them!!!!!
Posted by mamameow at May 29, 2008 09:03 AMHi Tiki AL,
yes, it's amazing how that works. Glad my ancestors weren't that transparently tribal, but instead were perfectly alligned with the universe and surpassing wise so that the religion of my inheritance was the right one.
Cheers!
If people have gone off the tracks, and see the error of their ways - I'm perfectly willing to accept them in the fold. I'd rather not hold their past statements over them like a club. Sullivan is interesting to read and has clearly grown intellectually. He has a deep hatred for Clinton, and that makes him hard to read on that subject. But he is also eloquent and persuasive on torture, and has really processed the danger of the religious right and the folly of the Iraq war. There are plenty of, say, Clinton-supporting bloggers who are going to have a pile of words they will be likely to regret writing. Keep that in mind when you want to permanently write people out of the fold.
Posted by Marc at May 29, 2008 09:09 AMBarry: Don't forget to thank your wise ancestors when you meet them in Heaven.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 29, 2008 09:34 AMeri, your typed laughter is beginning to sound like Doctor Evil's. That is, the laughter of someone who thinks he's figured it out and yet doesn't know what's going on around him.
Obama supporters occasionally will quote the Chris Matthews of the world, or the Hertzbergs or Sullivans, not because they are in lockstep but because occasionally they say something useful. Many Clinton supporters do the same, and sometimes they quote the same people. Your "analysis" here has become more and more an "us v. them" variety of groupthink. This is not good, eri.
I would suggest you examine your source, Taylor Marsh. Her career has been bought and paid for. She was a "columnist" in the L.A. Weekly among the sex ads, and her advice column there was listed as an advertisement. That is, someone paid the LAW to publish her column. She had a radio show on a station where she (or more likely someone else) paid for air-time. Marsh's book was self-published at a vanity press. None of these enterprises paid her money. They cost money.
In short, everything in Marsh's career after she won a beauty contest in Missouri points to her being a faux public figure/political commentator, created for a purpose. What purpose? She is preaching to a certain audience. Why this audience? The greater question is not what she says but who has been paying her to say it.
I pointed out earlier that Gloria Steinem was a CIA operative/informant in the late fifties/sixties student movement (which she admitted to in a NYTimes article in 1967) before she became a feminist. Her "feminist" career with MS Magazine was greatly aided by Clay Felker, who also worked for the same CIA propaganda ops. Throughout her second career she has repeatedly taken a "feminist" stance which invariably divides progressive movements, precisely the strategy that the CIA and the FBI's COINTELPRO have used against anti-war and progressive movements.
In fact, it would be interesting to count how many "former" CIA agents, employees and assets have surrounded the Clinton camp. Larry Johnson, Valerie Plame, Steinem. There must be more.
Posted by Bob In Pacifica at May 29, 2008 09:49 AMA little off-topic.
TIKI AL, did you ever read THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM. To understand the function of religion as a mental co-oppressor of the individual along with external state power is to go along way to understanding how we are controlled before we ever notice we are controlled.
Posted by Bob In Pacifica at May 29, 2008 09:53 AMI'm a "cradle catholic", so i'll chime in and say Bullshit. Eventhough i don't practice anymore, after years of working for charities and supporting religious orders who sacrifice everything to help ease suffering, I'm offended that Hetzberg made that connection.
I can see someone brought up in a particular RC household that believed totally in the patriarchical social control system wince at the idea of a woman for president, but they'll write in Mel Gibson anyway.
Maybe this is part of Hagee's plot to romance Catholics back into bigot-central?
Posted by misfitina at May 29, 2008 09:53 AMTiki AL, thanks for the good wish, but I'm more persuaded by the Roman idea of the afterlife, if there were one: the overwhelming majority of us, being neither exceptionally virtuous nor remarkably wicked, will wind up as shades wandering in the mist. So no real opportunity to thank or even recognise any ancestors there.
Mostly we need to get back to gathering up everyone stumping to set religion at the forefront of how we make decisions in public affairs, take them all and thow them in the mill pond until they cool down a bit.
You misrepresent Andrew Sullivan quite badly.
Posted by pragmaticprogressive at May 29, 2008 10:36 AMSullivan is a tired lying hack. Same for Matthews and Dowd. Add Markos too. It is both pathetic and revealing that these are the standard bearers for Obama supporters in their lust for Clinton vitriol.
Posted by at May 29, 2008 10:42 AMarent Catholics taught that homosexuality is a sin? Can he pick and choose which teachings make him/they better than others?
The guy is really goofy.
Posted by the young Judith at May 29, 2008 10:42 AMHi PragmaticProgressive,
Could you expand on your point here? Thanks for provoking me to actually follow the links, but after doing that I can't see how Eriposte has actually misrepresented what Andrew Sullivan wrote at all. Enlighten me, please, as I'm sure only you can.
Thx.
I knew "they" were trying to control us when the Knights of Columbus got "under god" put in the pledge.
Child abuse at the hands of pushy godbots isn't limited to actual buggering.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 29, 2008 10:43 AMBarry: See if godbot politicians float? Amen to that. Glad you won't have to meet that teacher you couldn't stand or the relative that drank too much and threw up on your mother's rug after all.
Heaven sounds like it could be a never ending nightmare with a control freak watching every move.
As you may have guessd, I'm a 6.999-infinity on the Richard Dawkins 7 scale.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 29, 2008 11:02 AMEriposte
I have been hghly critical of you regardng the clinton campaign, however this is one post I totally agree with.Suffice it to say IF you were brought up a catholic who was taught to believe in the moral difference of right and wrong, and who acts according despite the reprecussions,these MSM People cited are not those kind of catholics.
Moreover my pet peeve with them and the majority of prowar Catholics is that they are not practicing the philosopy of Jesus as we were taught. Quite the opposite. Thou shall not kill comes to mind. Remember Turn thy cheek? Forget about do unto others, I could go on and on about this subject.
It is exactly why I remain loyal to the Democratic Party , however please review "the Regan Democrats" mostly Irish Catholic working class who to this day mostly support this horrible war started for lies. Don 't let me get started about this self centered group who say they are catholics. BALDERDASH, good for you in this post. Especially those two good little catholics Russert and Mathews don't leave out Dowd. They can 't begin to say they are following Jesus's words and teachings.
Everybody knows that Sullivan is a tool, but what happened to Hendrik Hertzberg? He needs to spend the weekend strolling though the Chis Matthews Wing of the Daily Howler Archives. Tweety is probably the biggest liar in television history.
Posted by cygnus at May 29, 2008 12:49 PMI'm late to this party but just can't stop myself.
As a recovering Catholic myself, I could not stop laughing over Sullivan's remarks. I almost ruined my computer but fortunately did not.
The Catholic Church is one of the most patriarchal and misogynist institutions left in the world. The celebate priests, the virgin saints, etc. sexuality or the denial of it is the center of its psychology. It has other virtues too of course, but that's another story.
But, what else do these aforementioned paragons of virtue have in common? Irish Catholics, who as a tribe have been very successful in politics in this country thanks to mentors like the Kennedy family. There is nothing wrong with tribal/ethnic identity or sticking together or whatever else helps them get by in the world. But to claim some sort of moral superiority as a result is just a joke.
Truth be told? I hope this doesn't sound bigotted but my sense is this: Irish Catholics as a group, tribe, ethnicity just don't like Bubbas (WASPs from the south), for a lot of complicated historical and cultural reasons (or excuses), and that's why they don't like Clintons. Just my speculation.
Posted by idear at May 29, 2008 01:21 PMAnd another thought:
the fact that the Clintons helped to make peace in Ireland between the Catholics and the Protestants and ever since Ireland has been flourishing, that must really piss them off. Good deads must be punished.
Posted by idear at May 29, 2008 01:28 PMSorry, I meant "good deeds must be punished."
Posted by idear at May 29, 2008 01:33 PMiDear
I have been a watcher of Irish Catholics all my life. You got part of the story correct "they don't like ..." fill in the blanks.
They run in a pack of any other pack of haters, trouble is they call themselves catholic and Christans. They don't ever practice the words of Christ, Look at the scandals in the last years. The coverup was typical of Irish Catholic behavior. Remaining loyal to the Church for me does not depend on their behavior.Russert preaches constantly, remember the Plame affair and what he got away with not saying, even until today. Matthews and Dodd are typical of their backgrounds throw mud on everybody. Reagan Democrats are this lot, don't expect them to help stop this insane,unfair terrible war.
Well the above comments suggest that eripostal watchers have a new 'hate' to fixate on - Catholics. Maybe you should think about what eri doesm in the majority of his primary posts. He goes for divisive issues, usually involving straw men.
I was raised as an RC and I live in Appalachia. That should give 'postal grist for his mill.
Fact is, Sullivan, Matthews and Clinton are all products of their cultures.
Basically your 'arguments' don't hold water as far as Catholics go. Clinton won NY and MASS - lousy with Catholics; the poorer they are, the more they love her. The more educated they are (the pundits, intelligentsia, etc.), the more mlikely they are to view her and her husband in negative terms.
All you have done is to respond, yet again, to eripostal's slimy invective.
Nothing like a person who brings out the worst in people.
Posted by pragmaticprogressive at May 29, 2008 01:47 PMHey PProgressive,
could you please tell us HOW Eriposte has mis-represented Sullivan?
Thanks
Oh good gravy. The rhetoric in the past weeks is riddled with sneering about "those", be they Appalachian, less educated, whites, and now the Irish Catholics? I myself am a non-practicing but ethnic Irish Catholic in WVa, and I just want to scream ala Springer "You don't know me."
Please. with all the divisiveness and contempt for segments of the American population, it looks like Rove's handiwork and the Republicans are winning already.
Posted by misfitina at May 29, 2008 02:36 PMI'm sorry misfitina and others who may have been offended by my remarks. I did not make it clear, I wasn't talking about all Irish Catholics in our population but just the ones who have been involved in our political culture, the Russerts, the Dowds, the Kennedys... you have to admit that when you look at the Democratic power structure and the media power structure, there is a remarkable cultural link. There is not necessarily anything wrong with that, just that it should be acknowledged as something that is going on and not papered over as some kind of moral superiority instead.
Posted by idear at May 29, 2008 02:59 PMWait- i thought the Jews ran everything ;)
It's okay- i've had a bee firmly in my bonnet ever since the Wva election, and twinge when the anti-christian/catholic wank flares up. Purely anecdotal, the Conways were very much for Bill Clinton because he reminded us of JFK. 1992 was crazy times.
Posted by misfitina at May 29, 2008 07:09 PMCould someone in the know let me in on where us Irish Catholics go to get on the political/media gravy train.
Some of the commentariat need to check their logic and their anti-Catholicism. (rm forsyth you are a religious bigot hope that works out for you)
Matthews, Russert, Dowd and Sullivan loathe Clinton. Matthews, Russert, Dowd and Sullivan are Irish American Catholics (Sullivan is a British wanker but it will do for now) Irish-American Catholics loathe Clinton. That is Republican Logic 101.
Clinton is clobbering Obama among Catholics and a good many of those are of the Irish-American variety especially in the NE and mid-Atlantic. Bash media asshats for being asshats not for being Catholics.
Sullivan is a clown who not so long ago was speculating on liberals forming fifth columns on the coasts. That fact that he is a lying shit has nothing to do with his religion. Go to far down that path and you discredit the orginal argument that Sullivan is a condescending hypocrite.
Posted by better thinking at May 29, 2008 07:34 PMBetter thinking
I am a catholic of a different bent then the Irish Catholics we are posting about. all catholics are not Irish. If you study the history of Irsh Catholics in their own country before they arrived in the US, you will learn more about their culture of hate. . Citing the hate they express towards others, along with not practicing the philosophy of Jesus, while proclaining themselves catholics makes me a bigot?
In this instance we discuss Matthews, and Russert who are forever proclaiming their catholic upbringings but display no examples of it. Throw in the self centered Reagan Democrats as further examples of unchristan like behavior.
What I am is a catholic who believes what my faith has taught me. This horrible unjust war was in part caused by many catholics who voted for George Bush who were taught otherwise. Calling me names doesn't change the truth.
rm forsyth: perhaps you are half-wit who does not realize he is a bigot, but a bigot none the less.
Posted by better thinking at May 30, 2008 04:40 AMThanks for calling me a slimey name better thinking, that means you have no defense and cannot intellegently answer the debate. This is the usual sign of the "Tunnel Vision" hate mongers I speak of who cause pain to others to prove their idiotic tribe think.
Perhaps St. Thomas Aquinas comes to mind, better thinker.
I'm proud of my Irish Catholic heritage. I'm now a W & F* Catholic and think there are plenty of haters-in-the-name-of-Christianity that have nothing to do with their ethnicity. Glomming people by ethnicity is always offensive.
*weddings and funerals
Posted by Sharon at May 30, 2008 08:03 AMSully is an interesting case. He has this habit of falling for charismatic candidates (Reagan, Clinton, Bush II, Obama) and then when they disappoint him, (as they inevitably do), he decides they're the devil and must be destroyed. Kinda like your friend who always falls for The Bad News In Shoes and then gets his/her heart broken time and again.
I'm not sure what Tweety's and Modo's excuses are.
Posted by Blue Jean at May 30, 2008 08:07 PM