Well: what can they say? A reader writes:
I used to Read First Things about 15 years ago, and I liked it. I was always a pretty orthodox Catholic and it took an intellectually rigorous approach to Catholic issues and occasionally made a few political comments which I sometimes agreed with and sometimes didn't. Something snapped in the Bush years, though. The whole organization (led by Neuhaus) descended deeper and deeper into neocon unreality. Anyway, I was reading something about how the Corner over at National Review, which never stops touting Catholic doctrine when it is convenient to its causes, has been utterly silent on the crushing scandal in Rome. And I thought I would check out First Things' site, which I hadn't been to in a while. It was astonishing.
There are seven blogs there. I scrolled down the first page of all of them. I would estimate that about 80% of the posts were anti-Obama diatribes or links, or anti HCR, or anti Democrats generally. And in those seven blogs' first pages, most of which cover at least two or three days' worth of posts, this is the only mention of the doings in the Vatican -- and you'll never guess who gets the blame.