Ratzinger is not stupid. Including the reference to the passage that has incited Muslim anger was no accident. It was a calculated, intentional strategy designed to help George Bush and the Republicans in the 2006 elections, just like the Catholic church systematically helped Bush and the Republicans in the 2004 elections, through Cardinals and Bishops who attacked Kerry.The Vatican has become a partner with the republicans [sic], so they coordinate, come the final stretch of election time, to make things happen, make statements, take positions that help the Republicans. ~Rob Kall

What he has said about Pope Benedict in the first line above cannot be readily said for Mr. Kall.  Why would this controversy aid the GOP?  He tells us:

They help the republicans [sic] because the Republican positions on birth control, abortion, stem cells, gay marriage, pre-marital sex are closest to the Roman Catholic Church’s positions.By firing up an angry Muslim response, a predictable response after the cartoon episode earlier in the year, the Pontiff in red has created a media situation that makes nervous soccer Moms and quick to ignite Christian nationalists rev up their fear, their xenophobia and… their loyalty to the Republicans– who not too deeply beneath the surface– are racist, anti-Muslim, anti non-Christian.
 

 

Do Republicans have a “position” on birth control?  Is it close to that of the Catholic Church?  Is there a broad anti-contraception caucus in the House that I am not aware of?  Do you often hear about the Anti-Condom Amendment being pushed through the Senate?  This would be the same party in power when the Bush-appointed head of the FDA approved Plan B, right?  This would be the same administration that approved but did not expand federal funding for stem-cell research, right?  Does anyone have any clue what any of this has to do with the Muslim reaction to the Pope’s speech in Regensburg?  

But then we find out the real deal: Christian nationalists will go on the rampage!  Ah, yes, the Christian nationalists–a non-existent group made “famous” by Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming earlier this year–who allegedly form an elusive, amorphous group that stretches all the way from Marvin Olasky (!) to Christian Reconstructionists and who have very little in common with one another politically except that they are all conventionally considered to be on the right.  Presumably such people, if they are what Kall says they are (almost none of them is), are already “ignited” by the war with jihadis and their own worldview.  “Nervous soccer moms” might react in different ways–it is in no sense clear that these eternal swing voters will stick with the GOP because some Muslims are burning the Pope in effigy (this assumes that they are following the controversy as closely as pundits and bloggers are, which is almost certainly a mistake).   

If the Vatican works so tirelessly to aid Republicans (and presumably, the clever alliance works both ways), why has it consistently opposed the foreign policy ventures undertaken (Iraq) or endorsed (Lebanon) by Mr. Bush and the GOP?  As fun as it must be to believe in an overarching global conspiracy of Pope and President, it might help if the Pope in question had demonstrated anything remotely like partisan loyalty–as if the head of a worldwide church that espouses a belief in its own universality and catholicity, not being bound by the petty squabbles of partisanship in one nation out of many, could be bothered to tailor his theological addresses to suit the electoral needs of a party that has distinguished itself in recent years for injustice and misrule.  Of course, the notion of any such deliberate or planned cooperation is preposterous, but it reflects the depth of lunacy that has taken hold among quite a few liberals that not only see the Catholic Church as their enemy (that is hardly new) but regard it effectively as a wing of the GOP.  Partisan paranoia and hysteria rarely get this outlandish.

But, strip away Kall’s wild-eyed claims and consider a serious question: how could Pope Benedict’s quoting of a Byzantine emperor’s criticism of Islam and Muhammad help Republican electoral prospects?  If it was such a clever strategy to tip the elections in the GOP’s favour, how exactly does the strategy work?  Where’s the payoff?  Has anyone noticed a “Regensburg bounce” in the polls?  I don’t think so.  

Certainly the controversy has prompted The New York Times editors to say a number of phenomenally stupid things, but it has hardly become a burning election-year issue.  Everyone on the right, regardless of how much they disagree among themselves, sees merit in Pope Benedict’s speech and regards the reaction in the Islamic world as deplorable; a sizeable number of people on the left view the situation more or less similarly, though certainly with hostility towards the Pope’s general arguments against deficient modern rationalism and the like.  The main difference seems to be that the prevailing wisdom on the left about the entire controversy is “this is what happens when religious leaders meddle in the real world,” while there is a clear and ringing endorsement of most of what the Pope had to say, even if there are some on the right who regret the inclusion of the quote from Manuel II.  Then there are people like Kall, who see the entire thing as a sinister “ploy.”  Ironically, if more liberals are like Kall in their delusions about the arch-Republican Ratzinger (the idea is simply too funny), the better the controversy will work for Democrats in the fall. 

To the extent that the NYT view is typical of left-liberal opinion, their response could give the impression that Democrats are too wary to criticise the Muslim overreaction and too willing to believe that “dialogue” and ever more submissive attitudes towards every unreasonable Muslim sensibility will resolve all major problems.  On the other hand, if Christopher Hitchens is more representative in his definition of the struggle against jihadis as a “war to defend secularism,” and Rosie O’Donnell’s equation of the threat from “radical Christianity” with the threat from “radical Islam” is widely shared, it is possible that this entire controversy will energise secular voters–already scared by a half dozen alarmist books declaring the onset of American theocracy–and drive them to the polls to fight what they will probably see as an explosion of religious fundamentalism all over the place. 

In this, they will be acting irrationally, as there is no coming theocracy and no “Christianists” coming to take them away to some V for Vendetta-like concentration camp, but this may intensify an already highly motivated core of Democratic voters, whom we know from past elections to be predominantly secular people.  For unrelated reasons tied to administration social policy this year, there could well be a diminution of evangelical and conservative Christian enthusiasm for the administration and the GOP majority (though the administration and Congress’ foursquare support of Israel during the Lebanon war may help the GOP with some evangelicals).  The combination of motivated secular voters and dispirited Christians could work to the advantage of the Democrats, if this controversy has any electoral impact at all, but it is obscure to me how the controversy even enters into the political contest, much less how it figures to aid the GOP.  The best thing people such as Kall could do to fulfill their own predictions would be to keep harping against Pope Benedict and remind middle-of-the-road voters just how much liberal Democrats hate the Catholic Church and everything it represents.