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The Chicago Tribune has endorsed Barak Obama in Illinois’ Democratic primary. I can imagine the first draft of that editorial….

The Chicago Tribune is not in the habit of hugging lepers. However, if we must choose between a leper with six fingers and half a nose or a pariah in complete decay, we prefer Barak Obama.

Of course, we really would not want Democrats to read the Tribune; and if we didn’t need the money, we snatch this newspaper from their grubby hands. We console ourselves with the thought that they might get papercuts. And if a vulgar, subversive Democrat should be reading this editorial, we would like to tell you the least harmful way to vote.

We endorse Mr. Obama. He is indeed the candidate of hope. For instance, he dresses better than we ever could have hoped. (Clarence Thomas is another sartorial exception but he wears Antonin Scalia’s hand-me-downs.) More importantly, a man of hope usually doesn’t have a prayer. We like that in Democrats. It is that old McGovern charm…and we never tire of it.

However, this is the real reason for our endorsement: Mr. Obama is not Hillary Clinton. She is a ruthless, amoral, megalomanical sociopath; she would do and say anything to win the election. It is obvious that she was raised Republican and we will never forgive her for defecting.

This morning Chris Matthews was lending his unique perspective–and grating falsetto–to popular theater and films. “You see the election is just like Amadeus. Hillary is Salieri, and Barak is Mozart.” Unfortunately, he did not elaborate as to whether or not George Bush was Emperor Joseph and Dick Cheney was Maria Theresa.

With some back issues of the New Yorker, however, Chris can imagine a complete repertory season….

“Barak is Othello, and Hillary is Desdemona but she is married to Iago who is using her to get another term as Doge.”

“John McCain is the free-spirit, iconoclast, anti-establish hippie of Hair. At least, that’s the impression of the Republican Party and the liberal media.”

“Mitt Romney is like Eliza Doolittle except that the high-born lady is trying to pass herself off as a flowergirl.”

“Mike Huckabee is an Arthur Miller character. With just a smile and shoeshine, he is Willy Loman in The Crucible, selling guided tours for witch hunts.”

“Relying on his animal magnetism Rudy Giuliani thinks that he’s Stanley Kowalski and the voters are Blanche DuBois; however, Blanche beats him up.”

HEAD OF GREECE’S ORTHODOX CHURCH DIES

Associated Press Jan 28th, 2008

ATHENS, Greece — Hundreds of mourners, many sobbing, gathered Monday at Athens’ cathedral to file past the remains of Archbishop Christodoulos, the first leader of Greece’s powerful Orthodox Church to welcome a Catholic pope to Athens in 1,300 years.

Never portraying a gay cowboy or the wife of Bob Newhart, Christodoulos obviously was an underachiever. So the Associated Press was desperate to find something stellar about him. “Being the first leader of Greece’s powerful Orthodox Church to welcome a Catholic pope to Athens in 1,300 years” does sound significant…except. Let’s rephrase it in a contemporary context: He welcomed the assistant postmaster of Buffalo, New York to Camden, New Jersey. Unfortunately, 1300 years ago the Pope was a middling bureaucrat and Athens was a ruin.

At the time, the Pope’s name was Constantine. So visiting Greece was not exactly a novelty for him. In fact, he was just one of a long line of Greeks who served as Pope in the seventh and eighth centuries. Why was there this Hellenic monopoly? The Greeks still retained literacy during the Dark Ages, unlike Western Europeans at the time, and they were more committed to celibacy than the Italians. However, there really was a political basis for all those Greek popes. The Pope then was appointed by the Byzantine Emperor, and guess which nationality the world’s most powerful Greek preferred. If and when the Pope ever sought to be independent of Constantinople, the Byzantine garrison in Rome tended to keep the Pope modest. Indeed, the Popes were at the Emperor’s beck and call; the slower or less sycophantic Pontiffs arrived in Constantinople in chains. And the Papacy was not even an impressive sinecure. Rome was a threadbare and dangerous outpost in the Byzantine Empire. If Pope Constantine had any influential friends at court, he probably would have preferred being Archbishop of Thessalonika.

As for Athens in the 8th century, the once glorious inspiration of civiilzation now was its own mausoleum. The city was a depopulated ruin. Athens had been ravaged by the barbarian invasions and was still threatened by them. What the barbarians had not destroyed, the Christians suppressed. The Parthenon was now a Church. Other conversions could not be easily accommodated. Even after Christianity had become the official religion of Rome and Constantinople, the philosophy schools of Athens continued to teach a classical education, which the Church regarded as implicitly pagan. In 529, the Emperor Justinian ordered the closing of Athens’ schools, ending a 1000 year-old-heritage. (Aspiring scholars would be obliged to get the Christian curriculum at the University of Constantinople.) Without its schools–and the scholars and business they attracted–Athens descended into desolation.

So a Papal visit to 8th century Athens would have been no thrill for the Pope or honor for the city. It was just a bureaucrat passing by a wreck. At least when Pope John Paul II visited Archbishop Christodoulos, both the Papacy and Athens looked a little more prestigious.

With just hours before the Florida Republican Primary vote, and the polls indicating a dead heat, Mitt Romney and John McCain have abandoned all civilized restraints and committed the ultimate offense: Each has accused the other of being a Liberal.

“You’re a Liberal.” “No, you’re a Liberal.” “You’d hire a million illegal aliens.” “Well, you’d hire a gazillion.”

I am waiting to see which one is first accused of being a boogerhead. Apparently, none of the striking scriptwriters are Republicans; otherwise we might get a better quality of accusation.

“You’re so Liberal you’d have voted for Lincoln.”
“You’re so Liberal you’d have married him.”
“You’re so Liberal you’d have killed Jesus.
“You’re so Liberal you’d force the Virgin Mary get an abortion.
“You’re so Liberal you want to lose the Iraq War.”
“Youre so Liberal you’d want to win the Second World War.”

The New York Times:

PARIS — On the elite trading floors here, where France’s brightest minds devise some of the most complex instruments in global finance, few people noticed Jérôme Kerviel.

He was lucky to be there at all. Many of his colleagues had been plucked from the prestigious Grandes Ecoles — the Harvards and M.I.T.’s of France — and wielded advanced degrees in math or engineering. Mr. Kerviel arrived from business school and started out shuffling paper in the back office.

But on Thursday the world came to know Mr. Kerviel, 31, as the most dangerous accused rogue trader ever, a young gambler who found himself sucked into a spiral of losses that left a $7.2 billion hole in Société Générale, one of France’s largest and most respected banks.

So, only an Ivy Leaguer–or at least a Sorbonne graduate–has the right to be a catastrophe. According to The New York Times, your degree of incompetence should be proportional to your degree. Monsieur Kerviel, having gone to Lyons Jr. College, is only entitled to steal office supplies. A 7 billion dollar loss deserves the cachet of Harvard Business School.
Now the Enron debacle had the proper pedigree. Andrew Fastow went to Penn’s Wharton School of Business and Jeff Skilling has his MBA from you-know-where.

And the Ivy prerogative to be a disaster is not limited to finance. After all, George Bush went to Yale. If he had merely gone to Texas A&M, we would only be trapped in a war in Bermuda.

Louis de Cazenave was one of the two last surviving French veterans of World War I. When he died this week, President Sarkozy gave a tribute to the man and the heroism of his generation.

Three weeks earlier Erich Kaestner, the last surviving German veteran of World War I, died. There has no comment, let alone tribute, from the German government. What is German for awkward silence? The Kaiser’s army was comparatively well-behaved; when Belgian civilians were arbitrarily executed, the victims were limited to adult males. Nonetheless, there must be a certain stigma to starting a war and then losing it (except in the American South).

What kind of movie would have the title “Quantum of Solace”? You’d guess that it was an indie film, based on a poem published in the New Yorker, in which the writer/director/star/caterer recounts his artistic and dermatological struggles. You will be relieved to know that you are wrong. But you will be mystified to learn that it actually is the title of the next James Bond film.

I am not making this up!

“The Quantum of Solace” does not convey either the mystique, violence or gilded body part that we expect in a Bond film. Can you imagine the plot appropriate for that title?

Mad scientist Jacques Derrida has created a completely debilitating form of literary criticism, and only James Bond can stop him. With exciting action scenes at the Stamford Crossword Puzzle Tournament, brunch at Tom Stoppard’s, and a hot tub with Joyce Carol Oates.

I can hardly wait. In the meantime, I am going to write the next James Bond script, “The Bildungsroman of Post-Modernism”, where Bond has to stop evil mastermind Simon Schama from hurting Julian Schnaubel’s feelings.

I do believe that there is a time and place for profanity: certainly, when you are driving. When confronted and endangered by buffoons behind a wheel, I surprise myself with words that I didn’t think I knew. However, while occasionally therapeutic, profanity is no substitute for wit. However, an ESPN personality named Dana Jacobson thought that the ever popular “f” made a wonderful punchline. At a celebrity roast for a sports figure, she recited a litany of who should “f” themselves, including Notre Dame University and Jesus Christ. The irony may be lost on her, but she ended up f-ing herself. Jacobson has been suspended from ESPN for at least a week, and her notoriety will last longer than that. Who knows if she will even keep her job?

Willliam Donahue of the Catholic Legion of Hysteria has called for her firing, preferably at the stake. I generally regard Donahue as a vicious medieval relic. He believes that “Going My Way” should win the Academy Award every year. Yet, I am inclined to agree with him about Dana Jacobson. Given her flagrant irresponsibility and her imbecilic judgment, what can she say that would be of any interest or value to the public? Even by the less than cerebral standards of sportscasting, she is just too stupid. You don’t ever “f” Jesus; I wouldn’t publicly say that about Torquemada. If you are going to be sacrilegious, at least be clever. As a measure of wit, profanity is the equivalent of Chapter 11.

If only Ms. Jacobson has asked me, I would have offered this commentary to an audience of Notre Dame alumni:

When I saw a picture of the shroud of Turin, I was surprised that Jesus wasn’t wearing a Notre Dame t-shirt. Well, actually He was more of a Brandeis type. Let’s face it: Jews are not the best athletes. What sport would the twelve Apostles play? Six chess games. Would you really want Jesus as your quarterback? Yes, He could cure blind referees but He would keep giving the ball to the neediest team. And he would be a disaster for your concession business, feeding 30,000 spectators with one hot dog and a cup of beer.

And since I know what Jews look like–I’m rarely out of sight of a mirror–let me tell you that your “Touchdown Jesus” is all wrong. Here is how you improve that mosaic: give him a loud but expensive jacket, a Rolex watch and some very stylish titanium glasses. Now, there’s a Jew who belongs on a football field…as a sports agent.

Act I, scene one: the wreck of a living room. A body stirs from the debris.

Bill: That was a good debate. Hill…Where are you?

voice offstage: I am tweezing the broken glass from my forehead.

Bill: Put ‘em back in. Scars might help us with the veteran vote.

A ragged woman staggers in.
Hillary: Why couldn’t I have been President first?

Bill: It’s too late to change our strategy now.

Hillary: Well, we didn’t plan on being the victims of a vast left wing conspiracy.

Bill: It’s your charisma deficit. You’d think that the New York Times would appreciate an Ivy League, emasculating, quasi-Lesbian, cyborg bitch.

Hillary: ********white trash ***** lecherous*****parasite.

Bill: You know, campaigning against me would be a good idea for the general election. But we haven’t got the nomination yet. We need to cut a deal with Obama. Offer him the Vice Presidency and give Oprah two or three seats on the Supreme Court. I’m inviting him and Michelle over for drinks this evening.

Act II: The same wrecked living room, but now a few bottles are standing upright. Bill ushers the Obamas into the room.
Michelle: What an impressive decor. Arkansas traditional?

Bill: No, it’s Democrat contemporary.

Hillary: Save the charm for the voters. Listen, Barak, you scrawny upstart, this is my turn to be President and you are ruining it for me.

Bill: She said upstart, not uppity!

Barak: Don’t worry about the race thing. Michelle’s the only Black here. And if you are going to try buying me off, I’ll want more than 40 acres and a mule.

Hillary: The Vice Presidency.

Barak: That’s just 50 acres and a mule. If Michelle were here, she’d say that you were jiving me. That means you are attempting to deceive and cheat me.

Hillary: Yes, I learned that term from watching “Diff’rent Strokes”?

Barak: Was that the show with Will Smith?

Hillary: Gary Coleman. But I am willing to offer an ambassadorship to both of them.

Barak: Hillary, I want to be President, and People Magazine says I should be. So why should I wait for your turn?

Hillary: I could kill you.

Barak: I could kill you.

Hillary: Would you consider killing Bill?

Barak: Um. Where is he?

Hillary: I imagine that he is with Michelle, and you can imagine the rest.

Barak: Should we have sex in revenge?

Hillary: We can do better than that.

Act III: The inauguration of President Barak Obama. Standing next to him is his Vice President and wife Hillary.

America is definitely in recession. With oil commanding $100 a barrel, Mobile-Exxon evidently can no longer afford to subsidize Masterpiece Theater. (Actually, with oil at that price, the petroleum moguls no longer bother maintaining a friendly public image.) For some reason, PBS has renamed the series “Masterpiece.” Either deleting that extra word saved money, or today’s public no longer has the attention span for a two-word title.

The new host of “Masterpiece” is Gillian Anderson, who needs Cliffs Notes just to read the teleprompter. Ask her if she has ever read Austen, and she would think that you referred to a Texan city map. Worse, the production staff is not much brighter than Ms. Anderson. Reading with all the expression of Wolf Blitzer in a coma, Ms. Anderson relates how Ms. Austen sold the publishing rights to her first novel for a mere 10 Pounds. However, a little research might have provided a correct appreciation of that amount. Ten Pounds Sterling in 1800 would be worth $5000 today. That is not a fortune, but first-time writers are still at the mercy of their publishers. (And that explains the need for literary agents.) The average British laborer in 1800, one lucky enough to have a steady income, did not earn a Pound in a week. Miss Austen’s servants did not; but they were compensated with a drafty place to sleep and the used food leftover by the Austen family.

Those servants knew their place, which was not in Ms. Austen’s novels. She was a chronicler of her class–the gentry–and its travails of being snubbed by the aristocracy and crowded by the upcoming middle class. Even Britain’s war against Napoleon is seen through this social lorgnette. The navy, no matter how victorious, lacked the “suitability” of the army. You see, the naval officers were promoted on that vulgar criterion of merit. Horatio Nelson was just a vicar’s son. Army officers, however, purchased their commission; they need never stoop to earning their rank. Wellington, of course, was from gentry; his ability was simply a fortunate coincidence.

Yes, Jane Austen is a delightful writer. She regales us with the foibles and eccentricities of her world, but her insight stops short of realizing the inequity and injustice on which that world so smugly rests. There were two Englands. In Miss Austen’s, the heroines hungered for true love or at least an amiable marriage. In the other England, people simply hungered.