On Friday I opined that the demonstrations against the Pope might help the Republicans, but I couldn't explain why.

To my mind, the very fact of the Pope's apology explains why. Regardless of what anyone might think about his naivitee or lack of political acumen (perhaps he's a lot smarter than he appears), the fact is that he will be seen as having been forced to apologize. Forced to grovel to the same metastasized multiculturalist political correctness that is perceived as making everyone apologize (or remain silent, lest they too be forced to apologize).

It doesn't look good to see the Pope, once the very symbol of infallibility (and with a doctrine to go along with it), having to grovel in this way, not for something he said or believed, but for quoting a medieval emperor for purposes of discussion, even though he didn't agree with him.

Nothing I have seen to date goes further to prove Jeff Goldstein's central theses right than this fiasco.

Now, why would it help the Republicans? Because like it or not, the Democrats are perceived as the party of apologists, and the average American thinks it has gone too far. Not that the Pope rules their hearts and minds; he doesn't need to. He's a symbol. And a big one.

If the Pope can be leveled by this contemptible bullshit, is anyone safe?

I think that's going to be on many people's minds, and I don't think it is going away anytime soon (certainly not in the next couple of months).

As a matter of fact, anti-Westernism is starting to so closely resemble anti-Americanism that the latter might be on the verge of becoming a subspecies of the former. Fancy that! If stuff like this keeps happening, I could envision ordinary Europeans and ordinary Americans finding common ground. There's been confusion between anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism, with anti-Westernism often being mislabeled and pawned off to Europeans as anti-Americanism. Meanwhile, Americans who are anti-Western in their philosophy pretend that they're just siding with Europeans who obviously cannot possibly be anti-Western. If ordinary Europeans wake up to this con game, all bets are off. (I'd feel sorry for the post-modernist American left, for they'd be stuck having to hate Western Europeans the way they've only had to hate certain stubborn allies like Poland!)

Might have to revise this bumpersticker...

MORE: Glenn Reynolds cites this letter to the LA Times from liberal author Sam Harris, who doesn't like the war in Iraq, and who'd "like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry":

....liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.