Personal Aside: 2 Thoughts While Shaving.

1. Tony Blair.

The thing that gets me is why Tony Blair wanted to be a Catholic anyway. No sooner is he baptized than he talks about changes that must come in the Church vis-à-vis homosexuality: meaning more than tolerance i.e. not hatred or persecution…but downright toleration of the practice as co-equal with heterosexuality…which means that right off Blair’s challenged the entire structure of sexual morality that has been with the Church for 2000 years…the facts that are the bulwark of the faith such as—

--“God created man in the image of Himself, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. God blessed them, saying to them `Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.”

--The sexual act in marriage is good and beautiful because God gave it a two-fold purpose: generation of children and expression of mutual love between the spouses;

--Sex within the marriage bond is essentially unselfish because it is directed to others: ultimately to the offspring God may give the spouses and proximately to one’s marriage partner;

--When sex is used for selfish purposes it is disoriented…when its ultimate purpose is frustrated by artificial contraception and as in adultery, masturbation and homosexuality which are objectively contrary to the will of God.

Why, tell me, did Tony Blair want to be a Catholic if going in he objects to these tenets? Then we get to abortion which I understand his wife, Cherie supports. Ok, what am I missing here? Why did he want to be a Catholic?

And what in the world was his priest…by the name of Fr. Michael Seed…thinking of, knowing Blair’s views? Just another flaky priest, I suppose.

2. Rotten Staff Work.

Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to the president, explained why he didn’t get around to voting for Congress in his own 5th district…saying “I f----- up.” Really edifying, isn’t it? This guy is going to be out of there by next year. He’s a supreme disappointment. He’s the guy who handed over the job of building the stimulus package to Nancy Pelosi without any White House input.

Then no one tells Michelle that British protocol for 1,000 years holds that no one should touch a royal head of state. So Michelle, the sweater-clad gangling goof gives Queen Elizabeth a bear hug. And Obama is shown bowing low to the King of Saudi Arabia…breaking a tradition since 1789 when American officials do not grovel to foreign princes but shake hands straight out. I suppose we all ought to be grateful he didn’t curtsy. Believe me if George W. Bush did these things, Moosejaw Leno would never let him forget it.

Followed by the tacky gifts Obama gave to the British prime minister—from, ostensibly, the bargain counter at Osco: an armload of DVDs which don’t work in Britain—tying in rotten taste the curt return of the Churchill bronze that has stood in the Oval Office for years…and the rejection on the spur of the moment of the tradition of both president and prime minister holding a joint news conference which has been de rigeur for decades.

These things are what comes from having a chief of protocol somebody with no experience or training but who…as the first requisite…had to be a Chicago black…a Chicago black by all means…Desiree Rogers.