Rome has spoken, Washington has spun

The blog TAPped catches the White House in an extremely selective lifting of one of the Pope's signature phrases, culture of life, to support their position on the new abortion ban, while of course ignoring the Pope's views on the death penalty and the war in Iraq -- and indeed his views on poverty, redistribution, equity etc. One of Bush's chief spinners, Ed Gillespie, likes to play up his Irish-Catholic roots when spinning Dubya's policies, so we're guessing that he's the source of this nod to Catholic voters. Recall that he was recently arguing that Ireland's Famine emigrants would have supported the Bush tax cuts.

But even as the Pontiff gets drafted as a bit player in Dubya's pep rallies, he's getting written out of history by the same spinners when it comes to their thoughts on the future of Iraq. Dubya's big speech today seems to attribute the fall of Communism to Ronald Reagan's policies towards the Soviet Union. DUDES! Ever heard of Poland? Of Gdansk, of Lech Walesa, of Solidarity, of a people energised by having one of their own as Pope? The rewriting of history continues.