Margaret Archer-- Nasty, Nasty

I woke up yesterday at around 4am and fumbled around for the TV remote to get some light on in the room. And who should come up on my TV but BERNIE! What a happy surprise! He was chatting with the Morning Joe crew, most of whom were making an attempt to act like humans for a change. All nice! And then they started talking about how Bernie had been invited to speak at the Vatican on the morality of economics or something like that and I was thinking, "Oh, this is going to be a good day!"

That didn't last long. Once I got downstairs to my computer, there was already a budding scandal, set off by an academic, Margaret Archer, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Does she ever sound like the worst sadistic nun I ever heard of from my Catholic friends when I was a kid, the one who took great joy in inflicting pain and drawing blood.

It has also inserted Sanders into a dispute among Vatican officials. The president of the academy said Friday that Sanders didn’t follow proper protocol by failing to contact her office, and that his presence threatens to make the event political. The academy’s chancellor said he arranged the invitation and defended the Vermont senator.

“Sanders made the first move, for the obvious reasons,” Margaret Archer, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which is hosting the conference, said in a telephone interview. “I think in a sense he may be going for the Catholic vote but this is not the Catholic vote and he should remember that and act accordingly-- not that he will.”

"Not that he will?" Is she a soothsayer as well as a professor who can't express an idea in a way that anyone can understand? "'The president of the academy organizing this event has not been contacted with monumental discourtesy,' she said, referring to herself" and continuing her incredible nastiness. Sounds like David Brock gave her 30 silver coins.

Bernie's spokesperson said Archer had it wrong and that he had been invited. The Chancellor of the Academy, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, a close aide to Pope Francis, didn't specifically call her a lying sack of shit or anything like that but he did mention to the media that he had extended the invitation to Bernie. Now that Hillary characters have started a whispering campaign that Bernie invited himself, the Bishop felt he needed to set the record straight. "I deny that, he said flatly. "It was not that way. He said it was his idea to invite Sanders. "This is not true and she knows it. I invited him with her consensus," said Sorondo, who is senior to Archer.

Sanchez Sorondo: "We are interested in having him because we have two presidents coming from Latin America, I thought it would be good to have an authoritative voice from North America."

A copy of the invitation to Sanders provided by the chancellor’s office is dated March 30 and signed by Sanchez Sorondo. The letter says he’s inviting the senator “on behalf of” Archer and the conference organizers. An announcement about Sanders’s participation, also under Sanchez Sorondo’s name, was released early Friday.

...The conference Sanders will attend marks the 25th anniversary of an encyclical by Pope John Paul II that criticized excesses of unfettered capitalism.

Archer, 73, is now laying low and won't respond to phone calls and e-mail requests from the media for a response to Sanchez Sorondo’s remarks, that seem to indicate she's off her rocker. Or maybe she just hates Jews. Or is violently anti-something Bernie stands for (like Choice or marriage equality)... who knows. But, as far as I know, she still hasn't apologized for her ugly, rude boorish remarks to the press. What a pitiful creature!