CSotD: Erratum and Suchlike
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We should probably go a little easy on Pete Hegseth, who never said he was quoting Ezekiel when he whipped out that prayer the other day. What he said was that it was something some aviators had laid on him, and it’s obviously rewritten with flyers in mind.
And, BTW, what Jules quotes in Pulp Fiction isn’t all that far from what Ezekiel actually said in 25:17.
Yeah, I laughed, too. Then I looked it up. New rule: Look it up before you laugh.
Rogers offers something of a challenge: It’s well-accepted that Democrats are harder on themselves for ethical issues than Republicans, but there’s a difference between “well accepted” and “true,” and the fact that both Swallwell (D) and Gonzalez (R) resigned over sexual misbehavior makes the claim problematic.
However, Rogers saves the point by contrasting unnamed Democrats with one particular Republican. It’s a smart move, and the latest wrinkle in that was Franklin Graham declaring Trump innocent of blasphemy because … well, apparently because he’s Trump. Graham has a tradition of assuming God’s role in separating the sheep from the goats.
Just a theory, but I think when Protestants sing “This is my father’s world,” they don’t mean Billy Graham.
Juxtaposition of the Day
A pair of cartoons using the same (somewhat tired) phrase to call out prideful hypocrisy, but on two different levels. Darkow cites the arrogance of a recent convert trying to lecture the top theologian in his church, a personal issue that reflects more on Vance as a person than on the merits of the case.
Bagley, however, digs deeper, using the wrecking ball motif to illustrate the ongoing destruction of the wall between church and state, thus pointing out the absurdity of telling a religious leader not to offer moral guidance to his flock.
I don’t recall any major politician telling Adventists that they must salute the flag, directing Jews to eat bacon or insisting that Quakers must serve in combat, and it strains credulity not to believe that somehow the fact that Catholics make up 20% of the voting public is what gets politicians so riled up about papal guidance. But that’s just my guess.
When I was a kid, and Catholic, the church had a listing of current films in the vestibule, rating them as acceptable, problematic and condemned. I don’t recall politicians complaining about that, or about our requirement to abstain from meat on Fridays.
They didn’t raise objections when we were told not to use birth control, either.
But boy howdy, can you imagine the response from DC if all of a sudden a fifth of the young men in America had official backing to claim Conscientious Objector status in the draft?
We’ve already heard JD try to explain the Just War Theory to the Pope, which is like explaining gravity to Werner von Braun. Bring in an active Selective Service, though, and watch the fun!
Day seizes on a familiar argument, but it’s suddenly become more relevant because of the hawks who are insisting that Jesus stayed out of politics and therefore the pope should, too.
If they’d ever read the Bible, they’d know that Jesus had a significant number of Zealots in his following, including several of his Apostles. There is a significant school of belief that the reason he waited until Passover to enter Jerusalem, and then camped outside the city gates until Good Friday, was the risk of arrest, which he didn’t worry about during the day when crowds would make it inadvisable.
That same theory suggests that “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” was a clever response to a trick question, because his Zealot followers believed nothing was Caesar’s, but the Romans couldn’t prove that was what he meant.
In any case, Jesus never avoided politics. RTFM.
I rarely agree with Kelley, and I wish he’d included Tony Gonzalez in this cartoon, because, as noted earlier, there is a bit of balance in Swalwell (D) and Gonzalez (R) both getting booted for their sexual indiscretions. But Kelley is right that there’s a lot of corruption that doesn’t involve bedsheets, and while we shouldn’t ignore the personal flaws, we certainly shouldn’t use them as a smokescreen to cover public betrayals.
Meanwhile, Bok is pleased to see a prominent Democrat toppled and apparently suggests that the California Democrats will now run Harris for governor. I’m not sure they’ve got time to slot her in before the election, but, then, they didn’t have time to slot her in to take Biden’s place in the presidential race.
However, she’s hardly an unknown factor out in California. I doubt it’s practical, I doubt she wants the gig, but stranger things have happened and she gave a “who knows?” answer the other day to a question about seeking the White House again.
Still, the old expression is “Always a bridesmaid, never the bride,” and — sexist or not — it may fit. I don’t think Bok intends to predict a win.
Another voice from the right side of the aisle, and Benson suggests that social safety net programs are seriously damaged by fraud. The partisan issue is in that word “seriously.”
The federal administration has cited genuine, existing fraud to go after programs in Minnesota, but the closer you look, the more it fades into mist: It seems the problems had already been identified and were being investigated, while the genuine impact depends on accounting practices. If you want big numbers, they can be found, but if you’d like small numbers, those are also available.
You shouldn’t throw up your hands and declare it all corrupt, but, then again, you shouldn’t cut off food and medical assistance while allowing similar corruption in weapons procurement or environmental regulation.
As Zyglis notes, it’s a question of priorities. The president justifies his expenditures on monuments to himself because he is soliciting private funds for them, but if he can raise that kind of money for marble and gold, you’d think he’d be able to shake down a few of his billionaire buddies to feed the poor.
If it mattered to him.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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