I fail to see that the envious and bitter attacks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright should have created the crisis in Sen. Barack Obama's campaign when the remarks of Pastor John Hagee have not created a similar crisis in Sen. John McCain's campaign. Why is McCain somehow not responsible for Hagee while Obama is responsible for Wright? I suggest the difference is that the senator from Illinois is a Kenyan American and the senator from Arizona a white American.

Catholic racism in Pennsylvania? Seventy-two percent of Catholic Democrats in the heavily Catholic state of Pennsylvania voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton, according to the MSNBC exit polls, and more than half of them said they would not vote for Sen. Barack Obama if he won the nomination. The finding gave me a chill. On the other hand, most Obama voters said they would vote for Clinton if she should win the contest. Is Catholic racism rearing its ugly head again?

No one except the hard-line haters of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and British atheists such as the ineffable Christopher Hitchens can find fault with the pope's response to the sexual abuse scandal in the United States.

The argument in the Capitol last week was about victory. Legislators such as Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham believe, against all the evidence, that victory in Iraq is possible. They insist like puppets that "the surge has been a success" and see signs of victory. The president proclaims that we are winning the war. Gen. David Petraeus says that the progress is fragile and reversible, that there is not yet light at the end of the tunnel, victory is not right around the corner and the champagne is still at the back of the refrigerator.