I'm pretty accustomed to moralistic pronouncements from crazy Catholic priests, but this one is just a bit over the top.

LOPEZ: You seemed to make very clear that Catholic voters collaborated with evil when they voted for Obama. If you're Catholic and did, do you have to confess this now that Mexico City, embryo-destructive funding, among other things, have happened?

ARCHBISHOP BURKE: If a Catholic knowingly and deliberately votes for a person who is in favor of the most grievous violations of the natural moral law, then he has formally cooperated in a grave evil and must confess his serious sin. Since President Obama clearly announced, during the election campaign, his anti-life and anti-family agenda, a Catholic who knew his agenda regarding, for example, procured abortion, embryonic-stem-cell research, and same-sex marriage, could not have voted for him with a clear conscience.

Wonder if Kathryn got around to asking the archbishop about torture. Doubt it.

The Arlen Specter news is an extremely bitter pill for the GOP senate caucus, but this quote from Maine senator Olympia Snowe in the Politico  is likely to inspire stark terror:

But Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), a fellow moderate, didn't seem surprised. On the national level, she says, "you haven't certainly heard warm encouraging words of how [the GOP] views moderates. Either you are with us or against us."

"Ultimately we're heading to having the smallest political tent in history they way things are unfolding," Snowe said. "We should have learned from the 2006 election, which I was a party of. I happened to win with 74 percent of the vote in a blue-collar state, but no one asked me, 'How did you do it?' Seems to me that would have been the first question that would have come from the Republican Party to find out so we could avoid further losses."

Does this sound like a happy member of the GOP senate? No it does not. You really have to wonder what Mitch McConnell is up to. It's all fun and games to be the Rush Limbaugh party of torture and greed, but it's obviously a disastrous electoral/governing strategy - one that's now driving away critical members of the party. Snowe is openly saying that she's being ignored by party leaders, and implying she's on the "them" end of the Republicans us vs. them mindset. Ideological purity might be comfortable for McConnell and John Kyl, but it's likely to shrink their minority even further. It'll be interesting to see if Snowe stays onboard for the GOP march to irrelevance.

Lost in all the yelling back and forth over the recent disclosures is what went on at Abu Ghraib. Lyndie England and others were convicted of - or plead guilty to - and served time for conduct that, while unpleasant, doesn't come close to waterboarding, which - let's be honest - is a mock execution. It's beyond obvious now that the Bush administration actively created a culture where interrogators and military jailers were encouraged to push the "line" as to what's acceptable. How is it that England crossed the line but the CIA agents, psychologists and MDs who participated in waterboarding sessions didn't - let alone Rumsfeld, Cheney and their flunky lawyers Addington, Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury? Were the Abu Ghraib defendants not covered under the Bybee and Bradbury memos?