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?

Nothing. She just made it, as though it were perfectly obvious to everyone that the Pope is worthy of total disdain. This from a woman whose idea of fun is being on the receiving end of projectile vomit.

Will the media decry her in the same way it did Hank Williams Jr.? Of course not. The good news is that the public probably will. As we’ve detailed over and over on Big Hollywood, Americans aren’t fond of stars who take advantage of our goodwill to be outrageously liberal. Sarandon will surely feel the brunt of these comments at her next box office appearance.

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.

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

So we’re clear, just as I personally wouldn’t have fired Hank Williams Jr. for his dumb remark, I’m not calling for any punitive action to be taken against Sarandon. This is about the Left’s hypocrisy.

What I love about our First Amendment is that it allows us to know who the moral cripples in our society are. This is a good thing that should be encouraged not discouraged. Sarandon is just revealing who she really is. Nothing criminal about that. In fact, it’s a public service.

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.”

Foxman also called Sarandon’s comment “disturbing, deeply offensive and completely uncalled for.”

Read full piece here.

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.

Full piece here.

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. 

Certainly Dawkins could put up a fight using one of his tedious anti-deity diatribes as a weapon.  You haven’t been bored until you’ve been militant atheist bored – what do people at atheist organizations talk about after the first five seconds in which they all agree there’s no God?  And Hitchens could fall over on the guards – and the dude’s probably got a weight edge on the security team.  But in the end, the conclusion is kind of forgone – Pope Benedict will jet back to Rome and the atheists will pat themselves on their collective backs, assuming the efficient Swiss Guards somehow failed to break their arms.

Which brings us to Wells.  Leaving aside the question of why this Tinseltown transcriptionist is writing about the Pope and the No God Squad’s Britannic antics – shouldn’t he be breaking the news about the big budget 3D reimagining of My Mother The Car starring Matt Damon, Kristen Stewart and Ice-T? – it sure  is nice to see Hollywood taking an interest in holding to account those who have allegedly abused children.  In fact, Wells has a track record when it comes to folks in the public eye who treat kids as sexual playthings.

He supports them.

Polanski slammers on Wikipedia have apparently tried to amplify the matter into a much uglier and more pernicious thing than may be fairly warranted, and his defenders have tried to frame the episode within a realistic historical and sociological realm — i.e., one unmotivated by a curiously frenzied and tub-thumping moral outrage….

One shudders to think of what Wells considers to be truly “ugly” and “pernicious.”  And if you really want to mourn the state of humanity, just take a gander at the comments that follow Wells’s plea for understanding on behalf of the man who thought it was cool to drug up and anally rape a 13 year old girl. 

I don’t know what the Pope did or didn’t do – that’s for the police to deal with, along with the Catholic Church and even God Himself.  The chips will fall where they may.  But I know what Roman Polanski did, because he confessed to it and then ran away.  And no matter how wonderful and transcendent an artist he is supposed to be – I think he’s generally a hack – the same standard applies to him that applies to everyone else. 

Rape a child, go to jail. 

No matter who you are, and no matter how many Hollywood celebrities think a child is just acceptable collateral damage, a fair price to pay for the chance to bask in the glow of the artist’s unique vision.

Now, this dreadfully unprogressive, black-and-white, unnuanced, single standard philosophy goes against everything the Hollywoodids and their supplicants like Wells believe.  But for too long we’ve tolerated too many double standards – not just in Hollywood but throughout the progressive realm.  And it must end.  It’s time to call people like Jeffrey Wells and the rest of the excuse machine on those double standards.  Relentlessly.

As for Wells, at least he can be confident that if the logrolling website deal doesn’t work out, he has a great future – as community organizer advising “entrepreneurs” for whatever pestilent group rises from the ashes of ACORN.

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, Pope Benedict, Obama’s Russian speeches, Obama’s popularity, Captain Sully Sullenberger, Nancy Pelosi, The C.I.A., Congress, Carl Cannon, Sarah Palin, Michael Jackson’s casket, and Britney Spears.

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.

At a remarkable moment in Monday night’s episode, Jack had the choice of keeping his word to have the guy’s back or (defensibly and understandably) sacrificing him. He chose what was probably the reckless option. But by doing so, Jack not only saved this man’s life but also affirmed his commitment to human dignity on another day when he was driven to do things he really didn’t want to, for the good of the country, in defense of freedom.

We saw this same compassionate side of Bauer at the White House a few hours ago, when he was locked in a safe room with the president: The president pleaded with him as a parent, playing on his love for his daughter, to let her save her daughter from torture (this is 24, so I mean that literally).

During these latter hours of the day, Jack has been under the influence of Renee Walker. Renee is an FBI agent who appreciates that desperate times call for desperate measures. As a necessarily rogue agent, Jack has broken rules of civility. I won’t defend all he’s done and he has made clear that he will take responsibility for every bit of it. But it’s hard not to notice that being around Renee, and the female president, has had an effect on him.

Renee, too, has done things she didn’t want to do. She was shaken not just by the near death of the president’s husband on their watch, but by the fear of the young mother and child she had to terrify in order to help locate the woman’s treasonous husband.

In a message to an international congress on “Life, Family, Development: The Role of Women in the Promotion of Human Rights,” at the Vatican this past weekend, Pope Benedict XVI said: “Given the distinctive influence of women in society, they must be encouraged to embrace the opportunity to uphold the dignity of life through their involvement in education and their participation in political and civic life.”

He said of women: “Because they have been gifted by the Creator with a unique ‘capacity for the other,’ women have a crucial part to play in the promotion of human rights, for without their voice the social fabric of society would be weakened.”

You have seen that concern for the other in Agent Walker throughout the season. You’ve have seen that concern for the other in the president all season.

That is not to say that David Palmer was self-interested. (President Charles Logan was another story entirely.) But a woman brings something out in a man (the reverse is true too, because we complement one another) and you’re seeing that on 24. In its way, it’s a little pop-culture clarity in a land of confusion.