What they might teach at Bob Jones University

One of Ireland's more dubious political characters is Ian Paisley. He'd prefer that we call him by one of his titles, Reverend or Doctor, and one of his academic pieces of paper comes from Dubya's favourite South Carolina university, Bob Jones. There's no point in being polite about it -- he is an anti-Catholic bigot, as the most cursory perusal of his website demonstrates (unless he's being ironic). But he just might have crossed a threshold with his latest outburst. Normally we Irish are allowed, as the aphorism has it, a fair amount of latitude in insults hurled at each other. But, referring to the Irish foreign minister, Brian Cowen, Paisley said the following:

Somebody told me the other day the reason his lips were so thick was that when his mother was bringing him up he was a very disobedient young boy, so she used to put glue on his lips and put him to the floor and keep him there.
That has been recorded in his physical make-up.

Now we'll admit that Minister Cowen probably wouldn't be selected for some reality show about hip Irish singles at the beach. But I think just about any moderate person in Ireland is going to see this line of insult as unfair and mean. Perhaps Bob Jones is unhappy too -- at the failure to link the insult to some supposed Catholic attribute. Maybe "Reverend" Paisley will cover that in the inevitable weasel-worded apology.