Hardball’s on, and they’re talking about the Catholic vote. There’s William “Wingnut” Donohue from the Catholic League and Monsignor Thomas McSweeney, a priest from Erie, PA.

McSweeney said he does a lot of counseling for people who think they may be in trouble with the church if they vote for Kerry. Geeze, didn’t these people learn anything in Catholic school? Vote for Kerry, then go to confession. Problem solved.

Anyway, Chris Matthews is actually making some good points. (Must be an off night.) He said since the Catholic hierarchy considers abortion homicide, why aren’t they pushing for criminal laws to punish the women who have them?

The wingnut (who yells a lot) says there are “gradations of culpability” and the church reaches out to these women. Matthews is pushing him, asking why they aren’t held liable. He said if you can’t use the law in the same way in imposing a moral code, there’s something wrong.

Yep.

I’ve always said they won’t ever completely cross the line and treat abortions as murder because we can’t have a separate category of homicides where one class of citizens is somehow less culpable than others. (I mean, what are we, children?)

Because once people start seeing their wives, girlfriends, daughters and sisters hauled off to jail, the nation will rise up. It’s just common sense. So they’ll do what they have to do to dodge that political bullet.

Anyway, Matthews is talking about the innocents killed in Iraq, and why don’t the pro-lifers care about that? “I’m just saying, it’s not consistent,” he keeps saying. He’s getting the wingnut pretty worked up.

I hate it when Matthews is good, because now I’ll keep watching, hoping it happens again.