Story

Now that the election's over, why should Bush care? It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but if Bush is blowing off Catholics, who supported him in significant numbers in 2004 compared to 2000, he's going to hurt the GOP as well. What an ass.

Sure sounds like the ole "vote for me and..." followed by "f--- off; I won and don't need you anymore."

W refusing to see someone who doesn't agree with him on a religious level...why is this a surprise?

Wow, Robert Novak is either the most stupid columnist to hit Washington in years, or so incredibly corrupt as to make Rupert Murdoch blush. Bush might not know who Rocco Buttiglione is? Which particular sandhill is Novack supposing the President is keeping his head in? The idea that the President of the United Sates was not briefed on a regular basis on a controversy of the magnitude surrounding the appointment of the EU commission is insulting to me as an American. But then, Novak doesn't seem to know anything about the controversy either. He certainly didn't seem to think it was important enough to mention it in his article. No, that's not true. He just didn't seem to think it was important enough to mention until paragraph seven of a nine paragraph story, the second half of paragraph seven, at that. What's more, he mischaracterizes what actually happened. Buttiglione removed his own name from consideration after making an ass of himself during the confirmation process. Frankly, Bork was a better nominee. He was rejected precisely for incompetence. A justice minister above all else knows when to keep his trap shut about personal preferences contrary to public policy.

Buttiglione is poison. He was rejected by his own constituency. Meeting with Buttiglione would be pretty much the same as Bush inviting Kerry to join him for the inauguration. Every word I've read of Novak's and every time I've seen him on Crossfire, I've been further convinced of his inability to use simple reasoning skills. Either the man is a complete shill for the worst of the conservative movement or he is an entirely incompetent journalist. Though, nothing says he can't be both.

[ December 13, 2004, 02:52 PM: Message edited by: jqueer ]

I vote for C: All of the above.

How on earth does W dissing Buttiglione (one of the few things W has done right, IMHO) represent an attack on American Catholics, or even \"Catholics\" in general? Since when did this unappointed, unannointed Italian crackpot (Buttiglione) become representative of the hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics across the globe? Or even of the over 60 million Roman Catholics in the United States? In fact, there are far more notable European Catholic \"philosophers,\" as well as important representatives from far larger Catholic countries (Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, etc.), etc., making Novak's claim is just ridiculous. Does W's continued disdain of Jacques Chirac (a political conservative who is supposedly a practicing Catholic and, by law the representative of one of Europe's second largest [by baptism, not total population--France is more populous than Italy] Catholic country) equal dissing American Catholics?

Truthfully, do most American Catholics 1) know who this Rocco person is or 2) give a damn HOW W or anyone else (including the European Union) treats him? (I mean beyond Phyllis Schlafly, Michael--the intelligent-Novak, and Richard John Neuhaus?) It's not like W dissed the Pope, or even a European Cardinal or Catholic clergyman or woman of any sort. In Rocco's own words:

(There's more on him and this close friend of JP II at BBC News: Profile of Rocco Buttiglione

MIB, you know you had to stretch for this one. W has done tons of other things that would make any homosexual or practicing Roman Catholic--or sentient being, for that matter--outraged. Like giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the inept Paul Bremer, who still cannot account for over $6 billion of the poor Iraqi peoples' money (both Jesus Christ and the Pope are quite clear on mistreatment of the poor, the meek, the downtrodden), or reappointed the grossly incompetent and hubristic warmongering Donald Rumsfeld to another term as head of DoD (both Jesus Christ and the Pope are quite clear on wars like the one in Iraq--pope John Paul II is even on record with his condemnation of it). Would that W dissed other anti-gay wackos like this Buttiglione. He could start by refusing to meet with the idiot from Alabama who wanted to ban all gay-themed or affirming books (hey, why just ban them, why not burn them as well just to be sure--"First they burn the books, then they burn the people"--Erich Kästner)--but no, Rove made sure that red-state hatemonger was on his W's agenda. I guess it doesn't matter that it's another slap against gays. Are you gay/homo/bi/trans, etc. by the way?

[ December 15, 2004, 07:07 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

No. I posted it to generate a discussion, which it obviously did.