Records matter. Sure, its easy to look at the record for a specific year and understand that there was 'weirdness' that might make a less than desirable record palatable. It's pretty easy to look at 2011 and come to that conclusion. But at some point in time, those types of excuses wear thin. The bottom line is that Kelly needs to do better, winning games he should be winning, not blowing late-game leads and winning games along the margin now and then.

was often very solicitous of people of faith and was close friends with many including Andrew Sullivan. Hitchens also has been pretty clear about JPII's virtues along with his vices. Hitchens attacked the Catholic Church with such persistence and focus out of a sort of paradoxical respect. He realized that from an intellectual viewpoint, the Catholic Church is the most developed, serious and internally consistent of the major faith traditions. He admitted as much. As someone with long Trotskyist training, he knew that you needed to attack the strongest citadel to disprove the whole construct and he did so with zeal.

Since we keep circling to Fry, I think the money thing is a weaker but still colorable point. His point re More is unpleasant but true and I say this as a fan of More, who is a more complex and difficult case (and therefore far more interesting) than the plaster saint version. I recommend the novel Wolf Hall to which Fry refers. It is a fun take on the English Reformation from the Protestant side. As far as the Church's situation with regard to the abuse scandals and its deflecting, hypocritical treatment of gay people, I think he and Hitchens simply scorched the other side. I also note his reference to Ratzinger's conduct re Maciel, which was criminal. Finally, I think he is dead-on re the Church's politics on contraception in Africa.