Bush asks for Pope on a Rope

Just in case there was any question that recent decisions by certain Catholic bishops to deny communion to parishioners (and Presidential candidates) based on their political beliefs was a political maneuver (okay there was no question) we now have this choice article from the New York Times detailing how Bush is essentially and explicitly pushing the Vatican to help manipulate American Presidential politics...

On his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.

In a column posted Friday evening on the paper's Web site, John L. Allen Jr., its correspondent in Rome and the dean of Vatican journalists, wrote that Mr. Bush had made the request in a June 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. Citing an unnamed Vatican official, Mr. Allen wrote: "Bush said, 'Not all the American bishops are with me' on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism."

As Josh Marshall points out at Talking Points Memo, it's hard to remember there was a time when Kennedy had to explicitly deny that he was receiving directives from the Pope...