No role in his life and in his personality

Name of the Day (although that day may be sometime in the nineteenth century): the commander of Walter Reed, Col. Coots. Col. Norvell V. Coots, in fact. The V. stands for Vandervall, but then it would, wouldn’t it?

Donald Trump has decided that Carrie Prejean may retain her Miss California title, noting that her views on same-sex marriage are the same as Barack Obama’s. To be fair, I wouldn’t really want him to be Miss California either.

The pope’s spokesmodel, Rev. Federico Lombardi (director of the Vatican Press Office), after first denying that Ratzi had been in the Hitler Youth – “never, never, never” – had to admit that well yes he had but “This fact of the Hitler Youth had no role in his life and in his personality.” The reverend is in the good-and-evil biz, so you’d think he wouldn’t be suggesting that Benny was completely unaffected by the Hitler Youth as if this should be considered a good thing rather than a sign of deep moral obtuseness.

Pope Benny failed to mention his youthful Hitlerian experiences while visiting Israel and giving a speech at the Holocaust Memorial, and he spoke about the Holocaust (he used the approved, Jews-only term Shoah) in the passive voice, that is, without mentioning that Germans had anything to do with it. So perhaps he didn’t learn anything in the Hitler Youth after all.