Let’s turn our attention to a little country in central Europe, Austria – birthplace of Freud, Hitler, Mozart, schnitzel and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – and my grandfather, Samuel Simon Trauspiel.

This week, Charles I, the last Hapsburg to rule as emperor, was beatified by the pope. Possibly, we can put this in perspective – it took FOUR HUNDRED YEARS for the church to admit that the earth was not the center of the universe. Charles was emperor during that family skirmish known in history as World War One, and only died in 1932 – so he’s been dead only 72 years. It is amazing.

Why? Charles, at best, was not quite at the level of Bush 43 – an incompetent bungler, viewed by many as a war criminal for his authorization of the use of gas on the Italian front during World War I, Charles helped to usher in the era of chemical warfare. This is hardly the heroic ideal we might relate with sainthood. Nonetheless, Charles – like Bush, among certain fundamentalist sects – serves as a rallying point for defenders of Christian decency. If you use chemical warfare, or if you lie about someone else being ready to use it and utilize that lie as grounds for causing the death of tens of thousands innocent civilians – mostly children – you are an individual to be canonized as a Christian Saint. Charles is now on the short list for that sainthood. Will Bush be next? Is there a non-Catholic sainting procedure? And how many more people must Bush 43 kill to qualify? Does Bush 43 gain extra points, if he cripples the economy of the most prosperous nation in history?