No One ever expects the Spanish Inquisition, not even Glenn Beck

Morning--Glenn Beck tells his listeners to confront priests and pastors about the "social gospel" since this is a code word Communism and Nazism. Then they should leave the church. Early afternoon, news of this is posted on Huffington Post. By late afternoon the Office of the Inquisition arrives in the form of Jesuit James Martin, the cultural editor of America magazine. Martin blasts Beck in an op-ed on Huffington Post titled "Glenn Beck tells Jesus-Drop Dead". Martin then lectures Catholics that Beck is asking them to leave the Mother Church and he recites a litany of papal encyclicals starting with Pope Leo in the mid-19th century that articulate the social gospel and its centrality to Catholic teaching. And for non-Catholic Christians he recalls the teachings of Jesus about helping the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged. I would take this as a less than coded message to Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to stay away from Beck for the sake of their eternal well-being. You don't want to make Jesuits your enemy and their appearance on such matters indicates Mr. Beck has caught the attention of the Cathoic Church. Next I expect the appearance of Max Von Sydow as the Exorcist. Don't think the Catholic Church is going to drop this now that they have officially taken a shot at Glenn Beck. This may be entertainment for Beck but this is serious stuff to the church hierarchy.

The last public appearance of a Jesuit in writing was the editor of America writing in the Washington Post defending Nortre Dame giving Barack Obama an honorary doctorate, pointing out that the Catholic Church recognizes that Obama's social and economic policies were closely aligned with the Vatican's teachings and that there was room to have a dialogue about abortion. You'll remember the fuss of people like Alan Keyes with his SpongeBob Square Pants stroller with a doll, which was supposed to represent a dead fetus.

Good news, Rush Limbaugh has declared he will be moving out of the country if the healthcare bill passes. He has put his departure date at 5 years--contract obligations and all. He will be moving to Costa Rica, which has universal healthcare. Rush previously benefited from Hawaii's universal health care system. This seems to be a conservative trait lately. Sarah Palin telling Canadians her family used to cross the border for health care. Too bad we can't have it here.

If you want to get a sense of why and how the Bush Administration sent me around the bend, just watch the Liz Cheney-Bill Kristol cartoon show for Keep America Scared. Yesterday,Bill Kristol brushed off criticism of the Al Qaeda 7--now 9--ad saying that only "establishment lawyers will object. After all lawyers don't liked to be criticized." By afternoon, people like Ted Olson and Ken Starr not only gave out little sound-bites but produced a letter signed by dozens of lawyers and Bush Administration officials blasting the attacks on the DOJ lawyers. When Ken Starr appears and is allowed to appear on the Keith Olberman show, you know something serious has happened. Starr pointed out that the lawyers defending the detainees were serving the justice system and that in future terrorist cases there will be the need for a vigorous defense. After all he said the Department of Justice was not called the Department of Law Enforcement for nothing. And, of course, he mentioned John Adams defense of British soldiers accused of committing massacres in Boston. Starr also pointed out that the American military called some of these people up on weekends to ask for their help.

By the time this all winds down, I am sure we will surpass Joe McCarthy's numbers of those accused of having "jihadist" leanings in the Justice Department. But the more I watch this I recall the genuine incompetence of the Bush people. A war presidency, where the only one in the loop with war experience was Don Rumsfeld. Colin Powell was kept out of the loop even though he had been the head of the Joint Chief of Staff. Dick Cheney, who had been pushed aside during decision-making times during the Gulf War, assumed pivotal control. Virtually all the lawyers involved knew nothing about war, terrorism, national security law and I would argue the constitution itself. The top leaders only appointed ideologues beneath them and not people with any competence. So you get the lunacy of a Monica Goodling at DOJ. All the military lawyers, FBI interrogators and permanent CIA personnel were cast aside for the whole debate on torture. Amateur psychologists were hired to develop the torture program with absolutely no empirical proof that these techniques would produce any actionable intelligence, while plunging the country into a period of committing war crimes. As we learned yesterday Liz Cheney acted to deflect State Department personnel from developing a broad coalition government in Iraq.

Dick Cheney used to say, "We're a Superpower so we make our own reality." Well, you have to know how to manage that reality. Hiring a freelance journalist at the Pentagon to review the case against Saddam Hussein and linking him to Al Qaeda and 9/11. That reality didn't last too long. Dissolving the entire Iraq army because Paul Wolfowitz said they were all Nazis, that was brilliant. I generally don't like the State Department but I don't consider it the enemy. I think they have recovered somewhat from the days of Alger Hiss. But remember you had Marc Thiessen, former aide to Jesse Helms, as presidential speechwriter and Helms called State "the Kremlin on the Potomac". Marc , who also has no experience in war, terrorism, law or democracy, is now the expert on how torture saved the country. Believe me, if there is a next time it will be worse.

Bill Kristol is the father of big government conservatism as readers of the Weekly Standard, which called for a coalition of social conservatives, economic conservatives and neo-conservatives molding public policy to their ideological ends. Bill has not an ounce of political sense when it comes to domestic politics as witnessed by his embrace of Sarah Palin and his calls for war against Iran. Ideology first, last and foremost. If conservatives want power as we have witnessed for the past ten years, they will also need to develop competence because policy isn't just about diktats from the nomenklatura.

I expect to see some new assaults on neoconservatives by traditional conservatives. Bob Tyrrell, the editor-in-chief of the American Spectator, is about to publish his book on the future of conservative entitled After The Hangover. He is supposed to call for the return of Goldwater-Reagan principles and jettisoning the neoconservatives. Personally, I believe their day is done and over with. Bob was always puzzled by the behavior of the Bush White House. Privately, he thought it could be attributed to W being a recovering alcoholic. That's a warm endorsement.

In recent months we have seen conservatives throw the following under the bus--lawyers, scientists and teachers. Next will be doctors if the AMA again supportsObama's plan to reform Healthcare. It's a dangerous war against expertise.