Welcome to Pottersville has a great Frank Rich piece today about the symbolic importance of Jerry Falwell’s death:

Though Mr. Falwell had long been an embarrassment and laughingstock to many, including a new generation of Christian leaders typified by Mr. Kuo, the timing of his death could not have had grander symbolic import. It happened at the precise moment that the Falwell-Robertson brand of religious politics is being given its walking papers by a large chunk of the political party the Christian right once helped to grow. Hours after Mr. Falwell died, Rudy Giuliani, a candidate he explicitly rejected, won the Republican debate by acclamation. When the marginal candidate Ron Paul handed “America’s mayor” an opening to wrap himself grandiloquently in 9/11 once more, not even the most conservative of Deep South audiences could resist cheering him. If Rudy can dress up as Jack Bauer, who cares about his penchant for drag?

Wasn’t the MSM coverage of Falwell’s passing kind of funny? Aside from from the obvious nutjobs, people were struggling to say something, anything nice about the departed Christofascist gasbag.

This weekend I was thinking about the impact of Giuliani not giving in on his pro-choice stance. Although I am quite certain he will not win the nomination (nor will the GOP win the presidency), I can’t help but wonder if it will have a larger ripple effect in terms of bringing those who would like to vote GOP but are nauseated by the theocrats back into the fold. Now, aside from the fact that he seems to be a major sleazebag, there’s still no getting past the simple fact that Giuliani’s worst thing is his unapologetic warmongering and his continual sodomizing of the corpse of 9-11. And although that kind of thing still impresses the 25% still supportive of Bush (whom I suspect would also be impressed and enthralled by waving a piece of string with a feather on it in front of them), I don’t think that’s going to play well with people who don’t buy into that kind of b.s. anymore.

I’m thrilled to death about the fact that the GOP is so utterly, unbelievably screwed on so many levels. It’s sickening (and revealing) that the main reservation about the war expressed to the Prez in that GOP meeting a week or two ago was how the war is hurting GOP chances in the next election. Wow, they’ve finally found a good reason to be against the war – self-preservation. How noble. Sit back and grab the popcorn, this is going to be an interesting show.