Adventures in Jew-Baiting

Only two positive outcomes have been born out of the John Edwards/blogger scandal—or as former Reasonoid Tim Cavanaugh dubbed it, White-Hot-Sticky-Holy-Spiritgate. One is the diminishment of candidate Edwards. The other is hilarity. And much of those humor is rooted in the antics of Catholic League president/pope/taoiseach Bill Donohue, who has skin roughly as thick as rice paper. Donohue has a problem with people pointing out an old anti-Jewish rant he foisted on that elite class of citizens who watch MSNBC.

Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah. Hollywood likes anal sex.

This is obviously loony, but Donohue gets very angry when people toss those words back at him. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann did that on Monday, in his typical Murrow-on-roids manner.

Another guest pointed out that three years ago Mr. Donohue himself had said, quote, Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews, who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.

Mr. Donohue responded, I'm not going to put up with it. It's not the issue here, or I'm not the issue here. Yes, you are pal. Vulgar, trash talking bigotry can transcend race, religion, creed or color.

Wow! How will Donohue come back from that? Pretty moronically, actually.

On July 31, 2006, Olbermann interviewed Tom O'Neil, a Hollywood observer, and in the course of discussing Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rant, O'Neil wondered aloud whether Mel could come back from this incident: 'I don't see how Mel rallies from this, especially in Jewish Hollywood.' A few seconds later, Olbermann said, 'And let's clarify so nobody puts you on that list of folks who said things. When you said Jewish Hollywood, you meant the Jewish community in Hollywood, not Jewish Hollywood.' O'Neil answered affirmatively. So let's clarify for Olbermann's sake. When I referred to Hollywood being run by secular Jews, how is this any different from what O'Neil said?

Let's clarify for Donohue's sake: The part about hating Christianity. Come on, he obviously knows that pinning all media mockery of Catholicism on Jewish hatred of Christians feeds into all sorts of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Why keep blogging this? Who cares about John Edwards? Well, I don't, not anymore, after he blew a chance (mainly by not stopping Amanda Marcotte from blogging at Pandagon anymore) to smack down a clownish, paranoid shakedown artist who is to Catholics what Al Sharpton is to African-Americans. Donohue doesn't usually dabble in politics, but in entertainment, demanding the scalps of comedians and artists who dare to make fun of the Catholic Church, famous Catholics, or communion wafers. He's called for Penn Jillette to be fired for joking about Mother Teresa. He called Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the latter of whom is, yes, a secular Jew) "bigots" and demanded Comedy Central pull an episode of South Park which parodied stigmata, which the channel did.

Donohue gets away with a lot of this crap because networks (and politicians) see him as a representative of "religion," and they fear repeats of the Last Temptation of Christ protests. Well, he's not a representative of religion. He's a fringe activist who denies that the Catholic Church had a "pedophila crisis." Yes, that Catholic Church, the one that's investigated claims that more than 4000 American priests sexually abused children, claims that they had previously covered up, including some against Edward Dudzinski, the priest who baptised me.

Fired blogger Melissa McEwen says the Edwards affair was "a win for no one." Insofar as it handed Donohue a victory, sure. But it can still be a win, if his wacky beliefs and statements get more play and Donohue inches a little closer to laughingstock status.