Easy Targets

All the world is familiar with Tony Cekada’s writing style: arrogant, condescending, vindictive – and unscholarly.  But one at least gets the impression that Tony is trying to talk to an adult audience.  Dannie, on the other hand, always seems to be talking to a kindergarten class – especially in his Bishop’s Corner column.  He also seems to be “stuck in gear” on certain subjects, too: the weather, for one.  There is not a Sunday that goes by where Dannie doesn’t make at least one reference to the weather -- and a syrupy one, at that. [He ought to be the “color man” for the Weather Channel®!]

His Bishop’s Corner always seems to have the same window dressing: lots of confectionary sanctimony, faux piety, and over-the-top affectation; lots of fulsome flattery for the slaves who do all of SGG’s grunt work for “the show” every week; lots of references to this or that saint (and how whatever Dannie & Co. are doing “fits in” with the theme of that particular saint’s feast day); lots of plugs for Tony (and/or one of his latest literary flops); lots of platitudes, lots of name-dropping, etc., etc. – and, of course, lots of hyperbole.

And that’s where Dannie gets into trouble: he says things that really aren’t true -- his comment about Cekada being a “distinguished writer and theologian,” for instance: after witnessing so much overwhelming evidence to the contrary, how could Dannie have the hubris to say what he did – and to expect people to swallow it?  And the fact that he did say it suggests that he felt the need to do so – because that evidence is not only “out there,” but widespread.  But if that evidence is out there – and it is – this also makes Dannie look all the more foolish for having volunteered his bit of baseless reinforcement for Tony.  But that’s what happens when someone says something to a local (and gullible) audience that can be easily detected -- by a wider and not so gullible audience -- to be untrue.

Unfortunately, Dannie and Tony never will “learn their lesson.”  They’ll always say whatever they want to their bootlicking drudges, because they know they can get away with it.  And as long as they have a critical mass of drudges off which to feed, they really don’t care.  But that critical mass is dwindling; and, not only that, the dynamic duo’s mendacity is reaching that “wider audience,” some of whom have connections (and influence) with the comatose culties at SGG – and who are beginning to recognize the “dynamic duo” for what they are.

And among that contingent who are “waking up” are some who at one time were staunch supporters of Dannie and Tony, but who have come to take issue with some of their more outlandish claims – “una cum,” for example.  They are coming to realize that “una cum’s” rationale is nonsense, and that it was just a ploy to keep SGG’s sheep in the pen.  The same holds true for Tony’s other literary lead balloons (including Work of Human Hands, and his bankrupt defense of Dannie’s one-handed “ordination”).  Many otherwise reputable people were hoodwinked (by Cekada) into supporting – even promoting -- his WHH (out of “friendship” or “loyalty” to him).  But, after its myriad errors and shoddy scholarship came to light (and were publicly pointed out), these people came to realize that their promotional testimonials for WHH were becoming an embarrassing liability.

At the time, Dannie (and especially Tony) aggressively sought out “authorities” to write glowing “reviews” for his book [perhaps Tony even wrote the words for some of ’em!]; and several of them acquiesced, as a personal favor “to their friend Tony.”  But now, they realize that their own reputations (and credibility) are at stake (i.e., in serious jeopardy) for having uttered such unctuous flatteries as “landmark work,” etc.  I’m sure they now realize that WHH had not so much to do with “landmark” as it did with landfill.

The same goes for Cekada’s “explanation” of Dannie’s one-handed “ordination.”  Many unsuspecting people – many of them fellow priests – accepted, sight unseen, Tony’s defense of its legitimacy, not realizing that it was riddled with misinterpretations, faulty translation, bogus logic, and out-and-out falsehoods. Many are now rethinking the unthinking positions that they initially took, and are realizing that the public support they voiced for it is putting them in a similar “liability” position.  The fact is, that with most of them, Cekada has absolutely no credibility left at all.  Whether it be those priests who supported Tony’s “one-hand ordination” folly (or who acquiesced on Schiavo), or those who put their reputations on the line by plugging his feckless WHH, they all have come to realize how badly these things must reflect on them.

Dannie and Tony’s credibility here in the U.S. is fast evaporating.  That is perhaps why Dannie decided to take his recent winter getaways to Argentina and Mexico: he needed a “self-esteem booster shot” to take his mind off his waning fortunes back home.  But the idiot doesn’t realize that his boasting about the good time he had down there (consuming “copious quantities of beef” and doing the fiesta circuit – all during the penitential season of Lent) is not a “booster shot” for him, but more like a hollow-point bullet to the left temple.  [Then, after his Mexican boondoggle, the idiot had the hubris to "guilt trip" his culties for not filling up the church pews on Lenten Friday nights! – duh?!]  Anyone witnessing this kind of stupidity cannot stand by for long, and not see that to support such a dolt is hazardous to one’s own “reputational” health. 

Dannie and Tony both have weaved their tangled web too many times, and are now caught up in it.  Every time that they have opened their mouths, they have hung themselves with their own words.  The public-at-large are now well aware of this (and perhaps even the people inside the cult circle as well?).  In the past, Dannie and Tony’s apologetic lackeys used to come out of the woodwork en masse to defend their heroes; but now, there is nary a peep out of them.  For one thing, these apologists know that they can’t defend them, because they know that their words and deeds are indefensible, that Dannie and Tony indict themselves every time they open their mouths, and that their attempts to defend them will only end in utter failure (as they have so far) -- making them look all the more ridiculous, and giving them no other choice but to accept the truth.  

Now one would think that such a realization might deter Dannie and Tony from continuing to do what they do – but it doesn’t.  They are just as defiant as ever – Tony in his arrogance and ignorance, and Dannie in his syrupy, affected hypocrisy.  One wonders why they persevere.  It’s simple: because it works – at least on the culties.  And if the past thirty-odd years are any indication, it is a fair assumption that they’ll continue in that same vein -- as long as they have a critical mass of bootlickers who will swallow their swill.  But for those outside the Valley of the Brain-Dead, the dynamic duo has pretty much worn out its welcome.  The public-at-large see the real evidence: that they are worldly, self-serving, amoral hucksters.  

That being so, otherwise reputable people who have heretofore lent them their support would do well to remember this -- and to take heed – for, if they are seen as backing these malignant bozos (or as even being connected with them in any way), we again beg leave to point out that they are risking their reputations and their credibility by continuing to do so.  The dynamic duo, by their words and actions, have made themselves “easy targets” for denunciation; and anyone with any sense at all would do well to steer clear of them.  So, for those who have hitched their stars to these two falling stars, we suggest that they “cut the cord” with these losers, and distance themselves from them -- lest they too become “easy targets.”