Remember when Hank Williams Jr. was a horrible human being because he analogized Obama’s golf game with John Boehner to a golf game between Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?  Of course you do; it resulted in his ‘Monday Night Football’ opener being pulled by ESPN.

That, of course, was their right, although they didn’t use similar discretion when some of their local radio hosts allowed Mike Tyson to fantasize about Sarah Palin being raped.

Where’s the reaction to Susan Sarandon calling the pope a Nazi? Perhaps you didn’t hear about that one, because she’s a Hollywood celebrity rather than a conservative country singer – and because Hollywood celebrities are usually granted full leeway to say idiotic things. In fact, Benedict served in the Hitler Youth unwillingly and was never a Nazi Party member. He deserted before the end of World War II and turned himself over to the Americans.

Now, I disagree with the Pope on a wide variety of issues: he received anti-Semitic priest Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk in 2007, he made a rather rotten speech at Auschwitz in May 2006, he was slow to respond to a British-born bishop who denied the Holocaust, and his perspective on the Middle East conflict is problematic.

Nonetheless, he has stood tall against terror on many occasions, and he has criticized in strong terms both moral relativism and radical Islam.

So what prompted the Nazi reference by Sarandon?

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Not only is Sarandon’s “Nazi” remark driven by hate and factually wrong, it is the very opposite of what we all know to be true about Pope Benedict. Sarandon is lying, she’s doing so intentionally, and if ESPN is going to fire a Hank Williams Jr. for making a Nazi reference, will anyone anywhere in the industry of entertainment do anything with someone who utters this kind of obscenity?

That was a rhetorical question.

Via THR:

“Susan Sarandon’s ignorance is willful: those who have hatred in their veins are not interested in the truth. The fact is that Joseph Ratzinger [the Pope] was conscripted at the age of 14 into the Hitler Youth, along with every other young German boy,” says the president of the Catholic League of America, William Donohue, in a  statement.

“Unlike most of the other teenagers, Ratzinger refused to go to meetings, bringing economic hardship to his family. Moreover, unlike most of the others, he deserted at the first opportunity. Sarandon’s comment is obscene. Sadly, it’s what we’ve come to expect from her,” Donohue added.

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Via THR:

On Monday, the Anti Defamation League also called for an apology from the actress.

Abraham H. Foxman told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement, “We hope that Susan Sarandon will have the good sense to apologize to the Catholic community and all those she may have offended with this disturbing, deeply offensive and completely uncalled for attack on the good name of Pope Benedict XVI.

“Ms. Sarandon may have her differences with the Catholic Church, but that is no excuse for throwing around Nazi analogies. Such words are hateful, vindictive and only serve to diminish the true history and meaning of the Holocaust.”

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THR:

Sarandon was interviewed by Bob Balaban at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor on Saturday. She said she sent the pope a copy of the anti death penalty book, Dead Man Walking, authored by Sister Helen Prejean. Sarandon starred in the 1995 big-screen adaptation.

“The last one,” she said, “not this Nazi one we have now.”

Balaban tried to dance around the comment, but Sarandon just made it again, Newsday reports. The audience also laughed.

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Double standards are often nothing of the sort, and charges of double standards are often dodges by the disingenuous designed to convince the sophomoric that adhering to any kind of standard is inherently unjust.  But then there are some actual double standards that are so shamelessly transparent that one should be embarrassed to even utter them.

Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood-Elsewhere.com does not seem to be embarrassed.  He recently unleashed the full power of his ire upon the Pope over the recent child abuse accusations.  And his ire is awesome to behold, as we can learn from the plugs and testimonials his website continuously flashes – plugs testifying to his influence from the very same Hollywoodoids whose toes he claims to be willing to tread upon with abandon.

In short, Wells supports the wacky idea that a couple of well-known atheists should somehow arrest Pope Benedict on his trip to England:

I for one would be impressed and delighted if author and noted biologist and author Richard Dawkins and author Christopher Hitchens could manage to actually arrest Pope Benedict for crimes against humanity during a planned visit to England in September. The Pope “is not above or outside the law,” Hitchens has said. “The institutionalized concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment.”

Certainly, the spectacle of the doddering Dawkins and the perpetually pickled Hitchens (who is not a dumb guy, is a tireless advocate against dictators and thugs, and really ought to know better) trying to cuff and stuff the pontiff would be amusing – especially watching the Pope’s unforgiving security team go to town upon them.  Advantage Hitchens – he’d be unlikely to feel a thing.  (more…)

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[There are spoilers in this post.]

24 isn’t the first thing most people would think of when looking for a pop-culture representation of papal guidance, but if you’ve been watching 24 this season, you’ve seen a taste of what Pope John Paul II meant by “the genius of the feminine.” You’ve seen the complementarity of men and women at work.

During Monday night’s show, that Port Authority officer was not that innocent, having agreed to help a supposed electronics-smuggling ring (tempted by the extra money it would bring his family, with twins on the way). Seeing his regret once he knew the stakes–that he was aiding another terrorist attack on the United States–Jack Bauer couldn’t let him die if it was within his power to keep him alive. (more…)