Here’s today’s quiz:
The selection of the traditionalist Cardinal Ratzinger as the new pope elicited what?
a) praise
b) dismay
c) all sorts of gleeful remarks about how the Church had defied the agenda of the liberal media
If you answered anything but “c,” you’re sorely out of touch with a key demographic: bloggers who can find liberal bias in a weather report.
The Expatyank starts it off: “The media (most of whom never see the inside of a church as worshippers themselves) were all prattling about the ‘need for a liberal’ and a Latin American or an African. (And maybe a vegan.)”
Ha.
Vegan pope.
Stereotypes sure are fun.
Diane Meyer beats the same drum over at Respublica, writing, “[The selection of Ratzinger comes] after a day long grouse-fest on the part of church intellectuals and news media commentators about how disappointed and sometimes angry they are over selection of this German-born priest. They were hoping for someone who would provide the framework for a more ‘open’ church.”
More from the Decatur Conservative: “Listening to the media now, however, I think they still just don’t get it. It’s almost as if they actually think the election of the pope is a political office, and that, ‘boy, if he’s a little more moderate, or maybe “progressive,” why, then things could really be different for the 21st century church …'”
The Decatur Conservative pauses to pontificate about the erosion of Christianity in the face of political correctness and then gets back to taking shots at the media. “It’s no wonder, then, that the American media treats the election of a Roman Catholic pope as a political event instead; they see it through their filter, rather than just what it is, a group of conservative Catholic Christians praying together and asking God to help them choose their new leader. Ratings and liberal mumbo jumbo BS mean more to them than just reporting the facts of the situation. (So what else is new?)”
Nothing’s new when you stop over at MickeyMooseMU, who uses the so-called liberal media’s coverage of the pope to rehash the failure of the Dems in the last election. MickeyMooseMu writes, “It’s the whole ‘moral values’ argument from the 2004 presidential election all over again, only this time the media has taken a cue from Michael Moore and spliced in a conspiratorial plot twist to give off the appearance that they actually put some effort behind this. The left should just face facts — their candidate was an absolute dud. End of story. Hillary has set them all up like a bunch of bowling pins, waiting in anticipation to knock them down in order to become president.” (Or, according to New York Rep. Peter King, in order to become pope.)
Finally, we turn to the all-knowing Uggabugga who is offering up some wise words of caution. The site investigates the pope’s position on yoga, and, after finding contradicting reports, warns, “[O]ne should be careful when reading various stories about the man. Maybe he doesn’t like yoga. Maybe he does. There will be a lot of stuff tossed around in the media in the coming weeks. Don’t swallow everything you read.”
–Thomas Lang
Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.