...the Democrat's hand wringing a few years ago and what is going on with the republicans.

The Democrats had and have a political philosophy embraced by the large majority of Americans and have an excellent track record of governing successfully in recent history (see Bill Clinton). The success of the republicans over the last 25 years has been to redefine what the Democrats stand for in their own false terms (see, how the right redefined "liberal" to mean "un-American"). The soul searching of the Democrats resulted in better strategy and more involvement from average Americans, not a philosophical shift or remaking of "who they are".

The republicans on the other hand have a crisis of fundamental philosophy and have a disastrous track record at governing (see George Bush, and even though the republicans have tried to rewrite the history, Ronald Reagan.) Changing their strategy will get the Republicans nowhere except out of power because their weird patchwork of political/religious philosophies has been exposed by their time in power.

What the republicans need to do is to redefine who they are and what they stand for. That will take a lot of time and will require that they admit to themselves that they have been disastrously wrong on almost everything since Reagan took office.

I see no indication that the republicans are prepared to accept the reality of their failures, therefore they will become more and more insignificant and most likely the religious fundamentalists which have fueled the republicans for the last 30 years will split, effectively ending the "conservative" movement in America.

That is why the "non-evangelicals" with the McCain camp have gone after Palin with such viciousness. They know she is the first manifestation of a split in the republican party where "evangelicals" (can we finally start calling them what they really are, "religious fundamentalists".) split from the republicans.

You nailed it.

Oh crap, now I'm thinking of Palin again.

With Hillary comes a whole traveling circus.

...that this priest has absolutely no calling, authority or business telling parishioners that they cannot or should not participate in mass.

His opinions are his and not that of the church.

If he wants to "get medieval" then I guess he can write the Pope and ask that his parishioners who voted for a certain presidential candidate be excommunicated. I suspect even with the current Pope, the Priest would be the one getting tossed out.

P.S. (If there were ever a more perfect example of why there should be seperateion of church and state than the Catholic Church I don't know what is.

.... melging of the Catholic Church and politics gave us:

-Burning thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children alive in the name of God.

-Torture of thousands and thousands of innocents on the whims of batshit crazy and evil church officials.

-Accumulation of grotesques fortunes in the hand of the church... a church that claims one of its basic tenants is helping the poor... seems like helping themselves was and is what the Catholic church is about (and by the way the protestant Mega-Churches are even more obscene than the Catholic Church. If Jesus were to walk into on of these glass and steel monstrosities constructed to honor wealth he would smash every window and cast the entire congregation into hell, kinda like that story of Jesus busting up the temple in Jerusalem... I bet that's no longer a very popular story to tell in a Mega-Church.)

pass than that thing around again.

As most Salon readers know (even the trolls) the republican party cannot survive with a united electorate. They must have people voting based on their own trivial pet peeves and prejudices.

The lie that there is a "War on Christmas" is just another BS wedge issue that has no basis in reality and is endlessly hyped by right wing hacks.

This "Focus on the Family" front group doest think or care about how retailers try to capitalize on the Christmas holidays, all they want to do is scare people into thinking they are being threatened by some sinister force and only ones that care about it are the right wing loonies.... so vote the party of right wing loonies, the repuglicans.

Sarah Palin will protect you from the evil Grinch.... never mind that she is an idiot monster in waiting.