Gee, I dunno. Does the Pope wear a funny hat? After reading Adele Stan's piece in Alternet, I have to wonder whether Pope Benedict was worried about being indicted as part of the sex-crime cover-ups in the Los Angeles archdiocese:

Citing age and infirmity as his reason for leaving the papacy, Benedict's action comes just weeks after he opened his celebrated Twitter account -- and less than a month after the decades-old child abuse scandal drew nearer to the pope's door, with revelations published in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month that Cardinal Roger Mahony, then Archbishop of Los Angeles, sought to evade the law in cases involving the sexual abuse of children by the priests in his charge by sending them to treatment facilities in states that did not require health professionals to report the crimes to authorities.

At the time that Mahony was covering up the crimes of his priests, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that oversaw such matters.

In archdiocese documents released under a court order earlier this month, Mahony is revealed to have taken actions deliberately contrived to avoid legal prosecution of priests who had sexually abused -- and even raped -- children. The documents were so damaging that Mahony, now retired and once thought to be a contender for the papacy, was publicly rebuked by the current Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez, and stripped of any public duties, an unprecedented censure of a cardinal archbishop by his successor.

Amid the cache of church records, released as part of a settlement between the archdiocese and 500 sex-abuse victims, are several letters to Ratzinger from Mahoney, in which the California prelate reports to the Vatican his reasons for various actions (such as defrocking) taken against the offending priests. The records amount to some 30,000 pages, so their full contents have yet to be pored through by investigators and journalists.

Ruh roh, Reorge! Sounds like the Pope is scooting while the scooting is good! Maybe he's hoping he gets to die at home, ahead of the indictments.

It's really a shame that the Catholic Church, which once did some real good in the world before it locked its identity to that of the right wing, is going to lose what little credibility it had left with this latest sex scandal.

As the article points out, the same Church which bent over backwards to avoid investigating and punishing sex crimes was no slouch when it came to going after nuns and priests who weren't all that convinced about abortion or female ordination -- but especially those who weren't up to snuff when it came to stamping out the "intrinsic evil of homosexual activity."

Except, of course, for the priests who were raping altar boys. Apparently there's an exemption for that.

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Boy, talk about projection: Here's Glenn Beck yesterday on his Fox show:

Beck: This administration is into character assassination without due process. This is what we talked about yesterday. It's how the administration does almost everything.

Well, it's certainly true that the Obama White House earned yet another white feather for its shameful firing of Shirley Sherrod. But it was because of Beck's partner in smearing ACORN, Andrew Breitbart, and his own role in promoting the story that the White House did so!

Even more remarkably, only a few moments later, Beck himself indulged in yet another of his serial "character assassinations without due process" by again smearing Obama's dead mother:

Beck: You know, it's weird that no member of the media found it noteworthy that Obama's mom wasn't just a regular girl from Kansas. She was actually a little red girl -- a communist who left her son to go study Marxism.

As we've previously pointed out, this is just an outrageous, utterly false smear. Obama's mother was never a communist. The "little red church" she attended was simply a liberal Unitarian Church that was regularly accused of harboring communists by the then-rampant McCarthyite Red hunters who lived nearby. And never, ever, did she "leave her son" or abandon him for any reason -- and certainly never to "go study Marxism"!

So much for that "rule" about leaving families alone, eh?

Of course, the real irony is this: Fox News operates on the core principle of "character assassination without due process." Without that, it wouldn't be Fox News.

Wake County, North Carolina is an example of a situation where policy that sounds great in theory has, in reality, worked to re-segregate one of the most desegregated school districts in the nation.

Under the guise of creating "neighborhood schools", the Wake County school board ended its diversity policy at the end of the last school year, and with it, the desegregation of schools in the Wake County area.

Wake County school board member John Tedesco made a presentation Friday about his vision for the community assignment plan and why he says it works. Tedesco has stressed it will allow parents more choice and will take about nine to 15 months before the final makeup for the new schools zones will be finalized.

For now it's just a vision that John Tedesco hopes will be crafted into a plan for neighborhood schools.

But that vision looked like this to other school board members:

School Board member Ann McLaurin said she is happy to have a starting point, but is not seeing Tedesco's vision clearly.

"What I saw was a map that had zones with real poverty in them, with real economic and racial segregation, and there wasn't an explanation about how we're going to do that differently," McLaurin said.

Their action precipitated the resignation of the superintendent, sparked protests by students, and has opened a deep, wide rift in the community.

In the end, one of the contributing factors has to be what has been called "the age of forgetting".

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I don't normally get involved in media inside baseball, because 1) it's even more boring to readers than it is to me and 2) "old" media is so last season's Prada shoes, you know?

But since we're on a roll here today, what with Amato wondering why the media never bothered to cover Gen. McChrystal's cover-up of Pat Tillman's death and me writing about the self-censoring media, this fits right in.

Far too often, Beltway journalism resembles nothing so much as a high-school lunchroom. That's why, when Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel turned in his resignation yesterday, the Post eagerly accepted. (Morons.)

Weigel is a really good journalist who, although he's a libertarian, doesn't let ideology get in the way of his work. (Sorry, Dave. You have to know you're unusual, right?)

The Post brought him on to cover the Tea Party movement, and he's done an excellent job. So why is he being shown the door? Did he regurgitate false information and start a war? Plagarize? Make racist or anti-Semitic comments? Heck, no. Those things get you your own cable show!

He did the worst thing of all: He made the conservatives cry.

Remember what I said about high school? Like, omigod!

"Okay, like, there's this email list? Called Journolist? And like, this one girl named Betsy Rothstein, who is like, slaving away in a basement and probably really a little J-E-L of Dave Weigel, pumped up her hit count by posting a bunch of emails where Dave trashed some famous conservatives, including that perv Rush Limbaugh. Which got her a link from that icky Matt Drudge, and got Dave a bunch of hate mail from the right-wing whatevers.

"Okay, so Dave's ticked off and tweets something about how Matt Drudge should handle his personal issues by being more responsible, like maybe by publicly setting himself on fire. I mean, a joke, right? Funny! But okay, Dave apologizes to Drudge and Drudge responds by sending the flying monkeys after him again!

"Tucker Carlson, that smarmy little frat boy who used to wear the bowties? Yeah, I know, right? Short! Anyway, he got mad because that guy Ezra wouldn't let him on JournoList and so he decided to publish Dave's emails on his site. You'd think a grown man would have something better to do. I mean, he reproduced and all, maybe he should be home nurturing his clones, or something.

"Okay, okay, okay. Anyway! So Dave turns in his letter of resignation, and that Poindexter over at the Atlantic, Jeff Goldberg - I think he's that guy who picks his nose and eats it, or was that the kid from The Simpsons? Anyway, he, like, totally disses him.

"How could we destroy our standards by hiring a guy stupid enough to write about people that way in a public forum?" one of my friends at the Post asked me when we spoke earlier today. "I'm not suggesting that many people on the paper don't lean left, but there's leaning left, and then there's behaving like an idiot."

I gave my friend the answer he already knew: The sad truth is that the Washington Post, in its general desperation for page views, now hires people who came up in journalism without much adult supervision, and without the proper amount of toilet-training. This little episode today is proof of this. But it is also proof that some people at the Post (where I worked, briefly, 20 years ago) still know the difference between acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior, and that maybe this episode will lead to the reimposition of some level of standards.

"And like, clearly what the Carlton Banks-wannabe means is, oh, Mr. Washington Post, sir, I would never disrespect my elders or color outside the lines. Why would you hire him instead of rehiring MEEEEE???

"Um, everyone knows Jeff's, like, a total tool? Who's more of a stenographer than a journalist, and like, a lot of Iraqi civilians are dead because of his total d-baggery. Like, dead babies and stuff.

"Which you might think would bother him, but apparently not.

"But omigod, they keep wondering why we don't want to read them! Duh!

"Oh hey, what are you wearing to the party tonight?"

General McCrystal has been relieved of command and will be replaced by General David Petraeus as top Afghan commander.

MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has decided to relieve Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his command over all U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, sources tell NBC News.

Obama is scheduled to make an official 1:30 p.m. EDT announcement about the general.

Earlier, McChrystal was seen leaving the West Wing and climbing into a van after his nearly half-hour private showdown with the president.

Via ABCNews.com

McChrystal's comments, as detailed in the Rolling Stone article, do "not meet the standards that should be set by a commanding general," the president said today while announcing the switch. "It undermines the civilian control of the military... and it erodes the trust that is necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan."

The president praised McChrystal for his "deep intelligence" and "love of the country," but made it clear the comments McChrystal and his aides made could jeopardize the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

"All Americans should be grateful for Gen. McChrystal's remarkable career in uniform, but war is bigger than any one man or woman," the president said. "I believe it is the right decision for our national security."

Obama said the change was needed to maintain unity of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and to "hold ourselves accountable to standards that are at the core of our democracy." The president reaffirmed that the change in personnel didn't mean a change in U.S. policy.

For me, the key statement in the President's speech was when he said "disagreement is fine; division is not."

UPDATE: President Obama spoke today in the Rose Garden about McChrystal and Petraeus:

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I have mixed feelings about this. When someone like Don Blankenship is the face of Massey Energy (it's not every day that people are calling for your CEO's arrest on homicide charges), people pay a lot more attention to what they're doing. I'd hope they're not just going to look for a kinder, gentler version of the same management style. Via Huffington Post:

The calls to oust Massey Energy Company Chairman and CEO Don Blankenship began in earnest Monday, with members of both the private and public sectors getting involved.

The CtW Investment Group sent a letter to Massey's board of directors Monday afternoon demanding Blankenship's resignation in the wake of the disastrous explosion at the company's Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia.

CtW had previously warned the board that its minimal oversight over Blankenship's regime exposed Massey and its shareholders to "unnecessary legal, regulatory, and reputational risks" -- apparently vindicated in that judgment, the investment group deems the Upper Big Branch disaster a "tragic consequence" of Blankenship's "confrontational approach to regulatory compliance."

He's not fond of investigative reporters, either. (Check out his reaction to an ABC News camera crew at about the one-minute mark in the above video.)

Earlier Monday, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli likewise called for Blankenship's resignation. And DiNapoli is no idle politico: As the sole trustee of New York's Common Retirement Fund, he has direct control over some 303,550 shares of Massey stock, valued at $14.1 million.

"Massey's cavalier attitude toward risk and callous disregard for the safety of its employees has exacted a horrible cost on dozens of hard-working miners and their loved ones," DiNapoli said in a statement. "This tragedy was a failure both of risk management and effective board oversight. Blankenship must step down and make room for more responsible leadership at Massey."

After 34 years, Justice John Paul Stevens is retiring from the US Supreme Court at the end of the current session, as has been widely expected since President Obama took office. Justice Stevens has consistently functioned as the court's bridge between fierce ideological divides. Jeffrey Toobin summarizes his role nicely in his New Yorker piece:

Still, Stevens’s views suggest a sensibility more than a philosophy. Many great judicial legacies have a deep theoretical foundation—Oliver Wendell Holmes’s skeptical pragmatism, William J. Brennan’s aggressive liberalism, Scalia’s insistent originalism. Stevens’s lack of one raises questions about the durability of his influence on the Court.

But, more than anything, his career shows how the Court has become a partisan battlefield. In that spirit, Roberts last week denounced President Obama’s criticism of the Court in his State of the Union address, saying that the occasion had “degenerated to a political pep rally.” When Stevens leaves, the Supreme Court will be just another place where Democrats and Republicans fight.

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(h/t ThinkProgress)

The Dalai Lama once said

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

I wrote that on a little card that stays on my desk as a reminder when I start stressing too much over the bobbleheads and politicos who forget that their games affect real people. I admit I'm not always successful in finding love and kindness in my heart. Especially for someone like Glenn Beck, who seems to want to instigate violence. Van Jones has even more reason to not find love or kindness towards Beck. After all, it was Beck who led the charge to get Jones out of the White House. But if you think that Van Jones is going to give Beck the satisfaction of being nasty, you got another think coming:

Despite the best efforts of Glenn Beck to ruin Van Jones, Jones is back, standing tall, a righteous man vindicated.

While receiving a prestigious award Friday night from the NAACP, Jones refused to lower himself to Beck’s level. Rather than giving Beck the tongue lashing he so richly deserved; Jones rose above the ugly, divisive, mean spirited little man that is Glenn Beck.

Rather than scorn, Jones instead offered Beck a message of love, and the country a message of hope and unity:

Last thing I want to say is this: To my fellow countryman, Mr. Glenn Beck. I see you, and I love you, brother. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. Let’s be one country! Let’s be one country! Let’s get the job done!

With that short, brief, powerful message of love and redemption, hope and promise, Jones destroyed Beck. The contrast could not be stronger: Beck is a petty and vicious snake in the grass, a vile serpent, a vessel of rumor, innuendo, and evil; while Jones is a hero, maligned but resolute, rising above Beck and the filth of the right wing smear machine.

Some times, the best revenge is turning the other cheek.

Gov. David A. Paterson is set to announce that he will not seek election in the wake of reports that he and the State Police intervened in a domestic-assault case against a senior aide, according to a person told about the plans.

He is expected to make the announcement this afternoon.

It would follow a tumultuous Thursday when, following revelations about the governor’s involvement in the abuse case, many of his political allies suggested he stand down from his bid to be elected. In a news conference late in the day, the governor said he would stay in the race, but that he would also seek counsel from other Democrats about how to proceed with his political future.

The state awoke on Friday to calls for the governor’s resignation from newspaper editorial writers, which only added to the increasing belief that it would be impossible for him to run the state and a campaign while the abuse case, and its handling by both him and the State Police, is under investigation. He has asked the state’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, an assumed political rival for the governorship, to investigate the case.

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John Brennan, who isn't beloved by the left has actually been speaking up for the administration quite forcefully against the Republican bedwetter attacks on the way Obama is handling our national security. For conservatives, that's a little too much for them to handle.

mcjoan writes about the always pathetic Kit Bond, who is now calling for Brennan to be fired because they aren't used to being called terrorist enablers.

Republicans are back to their usual election year trick of fear-mongering, attacking--of all people--John Brennan, the former Bush director of the National Counterterrorism Center and current counter-terror chief. Kit Bond has called for him to step down, primary because Brennan has been taken the lead in fighting against Republicans attempts to protray Obama as weak on national security. The White House is on the offense...read on

Chris Wallace then dutifully did his part as a GOP shill to help embrace conservative criticisms of the president by feigning outrage over what Brennan had to say to his pals yesterday on Fox's Happening Now with Jane Skinner:

Wallace: Well, I don’t know if there’s a precedent or not, but it really is more a matter of the kinds of things Brennan has said. He went on one of the Sunday talk shows – not Fox News Sunday – last week, and really went after the Republicans. And then he had an article in USA Today on Tuesday, in which – and I don’t have it in front of me – he basically said, and this is pretty close to a quote, that the politically motivated criticism of opponents served the purposes of Al Qaeda.

That gets awfully, ah – and the Republicans certainly were offended, and I think there’s a question as to whether or not that really crosses a line, the idea – I mean, you can agree or disagree on the way that Abdulmutallab was handled, or the decision to try the co-conspirators, the alleged co-conspirators in 9/11 in downtown New York, but for the top counterterrorism advisor for the president in the White House to be saying that criticism of those policies serves the purposes of Al Qaeda, ah, it kind of crosses a line.

And you know, we’ve seen this crossed before. We saw the Bush administration do it after 9/11. But to somehow equate political criticism, or policy criticism, with lack of patriotism really doesn’t do much to help the debate.

Wallace does admit that Republicans used this tactic immediately after 9/11, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, it's totally unacceptable for him.

George Bush and Darth Cheney attacked our patriotism because they wanted to invade a country that didn't attack us and lied in the process of selling the Iraq war to the American people. Then they made sure that anyone who disagreed with them was labeled either a traitor, anti-American or simply soft on terrorism.

It's kind of funny watching their heads spin in shock like Linda Blair after being played by Brennan, who played by their own rules to do so.

And as usual, Fox News gets involved in an all-out smear campaign against Brennan.