Catholic Clinton Critics

Andrew Sullivan, while agreeing with fellow former TNR editor Hendrick Hertzberg‘s charitable take on Chris Matthews, takes issue with HH on one issue:

[H]ating the Clintons is not reducible to some strange atheist idea of what a Catholic’s idea of forgiveness is. The reason so many people who were brought up in a traditional Catholic household loathe the Clintons – Dowd, Kelly, Russert, Matthews, Sullivan, et al. – is because we were taught the difference between right and wrong, and taught to believe it matters.

Sounds plausible.

FILED UNDER: 2008 Election, Blogosphere, Religion, , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. There is no right or wrong with them, only gray.

    Just go away, Clintons. Just go away.

  2. ken says:

    This doesn’t make any sense. Anyone can see that Down, Russert, Sullivan and Kelly routinely endorse or make excuses for the moral turpitude of favored conservative politician whenever it fits their political agenda. To say they have been taught to know the difference between right and wrong and actually care enough about the difference for them to employ moral judgment is just plain wrong. The facts obviously do not support this viewpoint.

    Furthermore, each of them has been complicit in either the origination or the the passing on of unethical slanders against the Clintons, which they call ‘news’. But in Catholic school one is taught that ‘bearing false witness’ against another is a mortal sin. These people are not acting out of religious teachings learned in their youth. They are acting out of pure partisan self interest.

  3. yetanotherjohn says:

    If they were writing harshly about the Clintons before she body checked Obama into the boards, I could believe it is some sort of “right vs wrong” principle. But they were aiders and abettors of the Clintons when that was the ‘path to power’ for the left and now the long knives come out when she blocks their latest blank slate they want to use to gain power.

  4. Hal says:

    is because we were taught the difference between right and wrong, and taught to believe it matters.

    Yes, which is why his first instinct right after 9/11 was to label liberals as a fifth column and spend the next couple of years being the quintessential toady, doing his part to sell the biggest strategic disaster in history.

    Geebus. A stopped clock is right twice a day. Even a blind Sully the Pooh can find the occasional truffle.

  5. Paul Barnes says:

    As for Sully, endorsing the baby-killing Obama certainly shows moral courage.

  6. G.A.Phillips says:

    doing his part to sell the biggest strategic disaster in history.

    Taking the no.1 textbook of this country the Bible out of the classroom was the biggest strategic disaster in history.

  7. Hal says:

    Taking the no.1 textbook of this country the Bible out of the classroom was the biggest strategic disaster in history.

    Yes, I blame the constitution – which proscribes a state religion – and the fathers of our country.

    Geebus. What a maroon.

  8. Michael says:

    Taking the no.1 textbook of this country the Bible out of the classroom was the biggest strategic disaster in history.

    They Bible was available in my school’s library. It wasn’t in our classrooms, but then again we didn’t have much literature in our classrooms outside of our text books. My publicly funded High School also offered a couple courses on Bible History, which had actual history lessons not a Sunday School stuff.

    You’re not upset that the Bible was taken out of the classroom, you’re upset that it’s not being preached as fact.

  9. DL says:

    Catholic Connecticut Massachusetts and Rhode Island, are the biggest supporters of the baby killing party –

    Whale sharks and minnows -there are fish and then again there are other fish!