Is Christine O'Donnell a mini-Sarah Palin?

Not quite. Three writers at Slate have produced thoughtful pieces about Christine O'Donnell. The opening salvo:

It's too easy to make Christine O'Donnell jokes. If you're not part of her intended audience of conservative voters, you can just dismiss as wacko her talk of treating masturbation like adultery, dabbling in witchcraft, and welcoming "a season of constitutional repentance." And you'll be doing her a favor—all the mockery may not broaden O'Donnell's appeal in her sober state of Delaware, but it makes her committed supporters double down. It's a lesson Sarah Palin teaches: Make fun of the down-home woman (who happens to be hot) for her quirks of speech, and you also insult all the people who identify with her.

More here and here. Another delicious quote:

[...] what is O'Donnell—a Catholic, not a Protestant evangelical—doing in the middle of this movement? O'Donnell came of age when young Catholics caught the evangelical fever. In the early '90s, she was the front line of the movement's effort to control sexual politics. (Phyllis Schlafly, who founded Concerned Women for America, where O'Donnell worked, was also raised Roman Catholic.) O'Donnell's gift has been to make herself the fetching spokeswoman for the Christian-right obsession of the moment. She had her own little Terri Schiavo, as you both pointed out. And she did her anti-masturbation riff on MTV (with sultry red lipstick and a toss of her fabulous hair, in true evangelical girl style) just when the movement best-seller I Kissed Dating Goodbye was instructing Christian girls everywhere keep their hands to themselves.

Stranger than fiction, no? As with the whole Bible Spice phenom, you just can't make this stuff up.

'Own goals' all over the place today

Indeed, what a lovely day this is shaping up to be.

From Let Freedom Rain, news about Fox News South:

It's been a perfect day so far. Best of all, FNN is kaput. South of the border, something even more interesting is brewing. The selfish assholes who call themselves tea partiers have party-lusted themselves into major electoral troubles. They elected a non-electable scumbag in Delaware who will take away a sure Senatorial seat from the GOP.

Despite the protestations of major GOP tyrants like Rove, O'Donnell won easily and lost the Republicans a major seat. Best of all, Fox News' Rove is getting shit upon for his role in dissing O'Donnell. It can't get any better than that. Fox News South also in trouble, methinks.

Christine O'Donnell is a piece of um, work.

Across the pond, His Poopiness's tour of the UK is not going well.

One of the pope's top advisers on his visit to England and Scotland has dropped out of his entourage following the publication of an interview in which he said that arriving in Britain "you sometimes think you've landed in a third world country".

Benedict XVI's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, told the Guardian, however, that Cardinal Walter Kasper had withdrawn "for health reasons".

He said the 77-year-old prelate's absence from the papal party, which lands in Edinburgh tomorrow at the start of a four-day visit, "had absolutely nothing to do with anything else".

Kasper, the Vatican's leading expert on relations with the Church of England, made his remark after noting that Britain was a "secular, pluralistic" country.

Asked by the German news magazine, Focus, whether Christians were discriminated against in Britain, he replied: "Yes. Above all, an aggressive new atheism has spread through Britain. If, for example, you wear a cross on British Airways, you are discriminated against."

Nope, absolutely nothing to do with fatuous Catlick martyrdom. Perhaps he wants to spend more time with his family. . .

Finally, we'll give the last word to Margaret Atwood whose signature on the Avaaz petition really got this ball rolling.

Re: SUN's Kory T. resigns: I didn't do it. Honest. It was the Great Pumpkin (plus a few Own Goals.)