See AP via AOL News, Vatican diplomat Cardinal Pio Laghi dead at 86,
Cardinal Pio Laghi, a longtime Vatican diplomat who went to Washington to try to dissuade U.S. President George W. Bush from launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died. He was 86. ...
Pope John Paul II tapped Laghi, a former envoy to Washington, in 2003 to meet with President George W. Bush on the eve of the war. Laghi was trying to prevent what he said was a morally and legally unjustified invasion. ...
Up to a few weeks before his death, Laghi continued to keep on top of current events. At a December panel in which he participated via video conference, he praised the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president.
"I think you can consider what happened on Nov. 4 as a liberation from that horrendous original sin which for so many years stained the image and nature of the United States: and that is slavery," Vatican Radio quoted him as saying. ...
RIP CPL.
(much more below)
...Speaking of that "morally and legally unjustified" stuff, here is one of your last chances before Bush escapes the Presidency (and maybe even before he finishes mouthing his farewell address) to do something: just click on the following link, Gary_Myrick@Reid.senate.gov, Mary_Irvine@Feingold.senate.gov, and send the little package on its way to your hired servants on the Hill, Russ Feingold & Harry Reid, through their chiefs of staff (sample script below),
[e-mail subject line: "Censure Bush/Cheney, finish the job Russ and Harry"]
Dear Senators Feingold and Reid:
Please officially censure George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for their Nixonian, disgraceful, and ruinous failures of duty in office, before they leave office. Torture, Katrina, Iraq, and wiretapping are only some of the many reasons to condemn the administration in the strongest terms possible. The integrity of the Senate and of the Republic itself depends on official condemnation of our failed and immoral leaders.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
[your name]
Or phone them too, Russ's chief of staff Mary Irvine, at (202) 224-5323, or Harry's chief of staff Gary Myrick, at (202) 224-3542.
--Anyway, even if Obama's election doesn't wipe away all of America's "original sin", at least you can help deal with some of Bush and Cheney's sins! Write and call away! And enjoy!!