Welcome to Swampland, Amy Sullivan!

Well, as a non-Christian who will never be baptized and doesn't believe Jesus is the son of God or the messiah, Amy and I will just get along famously.
.
As Howard Cosell once said, "I can't tell you how thrilling all of this is."

Welcome, Amy.
Proximity is good - but it breeds contempt too. Ask MC. We have heard your praises - without the chance to sink our knives in.

[Come to think of it, has anyone heard from MM lately? Why is his mug shot all over?

jayackroyd -- you can put "Until the last sentence" on her epitaph.

KT –

Actually, going without additional cookies just now would be a good idea. We tend to overdo the holiday treats here in FlownOver country.
.
I'm not opposed to seeing more reporting on religion and its effects on politics, just as I'm not opposed to Klan marches – as long as they keep the hoods off so we get to see who they are. The insertion of religious belief into politics is inherently an attempt to coerce belief (or at least to compel action or inaction based on belief) through the power of government, so the more we see it coming the better. If the desired action or inaction is warranted on its own merits, its basis in religion is immaterial.

Amy Sullivan:

Thank you for responding to commentary, it is very appreciated.

"Lapsed Unitarian" = This.

a lapsed Unitarian...

Isn't that like being an uncertified Astrologer?

FO - Well said. Perhaps it's my prejudice against proselytization whether it's for religious or political purposes that I have so much energy about Ms. Sullivan's selection. She seems to be a proponent of both.
.
Perhaps she will share if she is an ordained minister.

I am indeed Catholic, but I am married to a Unitarian--not only that, a lapsed Unitarian.

a lapsed unitarian? Isn't that the same as a fundamentalist?

*********

As for Ms Sullivan, her work at Washington Monthly demonstrates that she the kind of "commentator" who in the 1960's, would have been telling the Democratic Party that it needed to go much slower on "Civil Rights for Negros" (not that she would have been a "racist" in the sixties, its just that she would "understand" cross-burners and argue that they are really good people with a few bad ideas...)

@KT,
Fortunately I'm alone in the room at the moment or I'd have to explain to everyone why I'm laughing so loudly....

KT - That's clever. There's a good story about the jewish student who was doing poorly in Math until his parents sent him to a Catholic parochial school where amazingly and immediately he got straight "A"s. I won't post the punchline unless there's popular demand for it.

Andy from MA Says:
" .. doesn't believe Jesus is the son of God or the messiah .."
Is it implicit here that you believe in "God"? And if you do, you must have developed that concept you believe in from somewhere.

What attributes does it have?

And what would make you believe in the "son of" tag?
[What the heck, you do believe in - or you are forced to tolerate - the tag "marriage" as applied to unions between adults of same sex while viciously stamping "criminal" to polygamy ...]

KT:
_
Not that a response is required from you, but I look forward to Amy Sullivan's "political insights" about as much as I do the latest "features" added to this blog's software, e.g. disruptive pagination or the abandonment of preview.
_
It is my profound hope that Amy Sullivan will demonstrate a value to the place beyond a perfect demonstration of the exhausted, other-directed Village-speak by which we're cynically accustomed to being nauseated.
_
Let's encourage her to take advantage of this medium by breaking away from the inane, fatuous, cliche-burdened scripts usually characterizing the cocktail-weenie cohort's "work".
_
If this isn't the worst idea in the world, relatively soon Amy Sullivan should (publicly) realize that by posting in here she's no longer verbally wallpapering salons in Versailles...

cfukara - I think marriage should be as legal as it is in MA for two adults to marry as it should be every else in the country, without regard to gender, race or religion.
.
I would say that I have a Jewish family heritage but am more of an agnostic than a believer. I don't rule out the possibilty of a "supreme being."
.
As far as the "son of" tag, I probably would become a believer if I burn in hell for an eternity.

If Stengel hired her, my expectations would be pretty low. I have to assume she's center-right, and as far as Israel is concerned, I'm expecting the same old same old. It is Time after all.
.
Has anyone read this piece about Russert the Magic Reguler White Guy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/magazine/28russert-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine
...the media still worshiping the wisdom of the uneducated. Maybe it's just start of Madden '12 campaign. I mean, I would like to have a beer w/ the guy.
.
This is sure to piss off Joe Klein: Webb wants to reform the criminal justice system. He might even be willing to say that people w/ power and wealth should go to jail for their crimes like the rest of the slathering proles. Yes, even people Klein might reasonably expect to meet at a DC cocktail party. Damn dirty hippie.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801728_2.html?wprss=rss_politics

Oh, off topic again, I've put up a hub for the material from the interview thing I do, Virtually Speaking.
.
http://virtuallyspeaking.ning.com/
.
The KT/Jay Rosen discussion is in the MP3/music column. I listened to that today, and there was some good interaction.

Thanks for that Tumulty/Rosen link, Jay.

Tom Brokaw was pissed that Rather wanted to be the next Ed Murrow; he wanted to be annointed. Brokaw couldn't be the next H. V. Kaltenborn.

"I'm an evangelical, not Catholic"
.
As you are the religion writer I find this curious. You use the lower case "e".
.
I have belonged to a parish loaded with evangelical Catholics. It was encouraged from the pulpit.

Amy Sullivan...separated at birth?
http://mulher50a60.weblog.com.pt/arquivo/Botticelli_The_Birth_of_Venus_Detail.jpg

@Andy..
OK, I give up. Why did the kid get straight A's?

So KT, now that you guys have hired ANOTHER WINGER. Can you tell us why Time refuses to hire a liberal? Heh, heh...couldn't help myself. Relax KT, I don't expect you to answer...paycheck and all.

...oh, and I forgot: Amy Sullivan, will cavemen be allowed to enter heaven? And the dinosaurs...did we used to ride them like horses?