evolution

Reuters writes a story about the new Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, an orthodox Catholic in a similar vein to John Paul II.

Guess what their headline reads: Arch-conservative German elected pope.

IT’S A CONSPIRACY!! RUMSFELD AND WOLFOWITZ ARE INVOLVED!! SMIRKING CHIMPY MCBUSHOILHITLER!!!! (ack)

These reporters interviewed no less than four people who opposed Benedict XVI’s ascendance to the papacy and no one who supported it. Finally, there is the obligatory dropping of the “H”-bomb in a story about an “arch-conservative”.

Born in Bavaria on April 16, 1927, the son of a police chief, he served in the Hitler Youth during World War II when membership was compulsory, according to his autobiography.

But he was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler’s regime, biographers have said.

Ratzinger later became a leading theology professor and then archbishop of Munich before taking over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981.

The impression Reuters wants you to get is that Ratzinger is somewhere between the evil Bush cabal(CHIMPY!!!) and a Nazi. Shameful.

UPDATE [16:14]: The Jerusalem Post debunks that last one. And PunditGuy has the new Pope covered from head to toe (literally).

Lt. Smash and Michelle Malkin have more. So does the Commissar, who also immortalizes this blog in dinosaur form (mouse over the dinosaur in the image, and some of the other figures to see your blogging favorites). And Paul of Oozebang gets one right for a change, taking out the trash.

UPDATE [22:15]: It should also be noted when reporters do a good job, such as this AP story about Benedict XVI.