Jon O'Brien says this week's meeting in Rome between Pope Benedict XVI and the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi comes at an opportune time with the recent election of President Obama.

He says while it “is true there have been differences of opinion” between the Catholic hierarchy and Mrs. Pelosi on such issues as contraception and abortion, the 2008 elections proved “a majority of Catholics supported the policies that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party represent,” surrounding the economy, poverty, minimum wage, health care reform, child care, and waging war.

BLACK GOLD

As economies crumble around the world, virtually putting the skids on Al Gore's call to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Carl Mortished reflects in the Times of London:

”Like Coleridge's ancient mariner, the nation is becalmed, a painted ship on a painted ocean and we have gone back a century, hewing the same coal that first put Britain on the fast track to the Industrial Revolution. The reason why we are still stuffing black lumps of carbon into furnaces is simple: it makes economic sense and the financial markets are shouting this message louder than ever before.”

PLENTY MORE LEFT

”If he wins, that won't be the first time he'll step in it.”

So quipped Vincent Callahan, a Republican who retired from the Virginia House of Delegates following a 40-year political career, after seeing Alexandria City Council candidate Frank Fannon IV accidently step into a pile of horse manure on this week's George Washington Birthday Parade route through Old Town Alexandria.

“He looked down, lifted his foot, smiled and shrugged his shoulders to the crowd, which cheered him on,” says one onlooker.

A fifth-generation Alexandrian, Mr. Fannon is hoping to win a seat for Republicans on the currently all-Democrat council.