John Paul The Overrated

On Slate, Marc Fisher provides a much-needed corrective to the Pope-defeated-communism myth being perpetuated by the likes of Peggy Noonan.

In her latest column, Nooners evisions the pontiff as the Holy-Aquaman of an '80s anti-communism Superfriends:

We don't know everything, or even a lot, about the quiet diplomatic moves--what happened in private, what kind of communications the pope had with the other great lions of the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher. And others, including Bill Casey, the tough old fox of the CIA, and Lech Walesa of Solidarity.

Ronnie was Superman, Maggie was Batwoman, Lech was Robin and Bill Casey was the monkey.

Nooners attributes the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc to a speech John Paul II gave in "the Old City of Warsaw" on July 2, 1979. She seems to be cribbing her entire column from a pro-Pope biography by George Wiegel, and I wouldn't be surprised if Peg has no independent recall of that supposedly historic event. Or much else of 1979.

Peggy also calls for the dismemberment of the papal corpse and distribution of the papal organs:

They say he asked that his heart be removed from his body and buried in Poland. That sounds right, and I hope it's true. They'd better get a big box.

I think FedEx has rules against that sort of thing.