Democratic congressman: "Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."

Rep. Michael Capuano was speaking at the Boston rally in "solidarity" with the Wisconsin protests. Last month, after the Tucson rally, he said: "There's always some degree of tension in politics; everybody knows the last couple of years there's been an intentional increase in the degree of heat in political discourse. . . . If nothing else good comes out of this, I'm hoping it causes people to reconsider how they deal with things."

James Taranto cries hypocrisy, but it's not all that hypocritical. Capuano said there would always be "tension" in politics, that people are intentionally increasing that tension (or "heat"), and that people should think about "how they deal with things." You can read that a lot of ways!

The NYT asks whether Jon Stewart is "the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow."

"Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?"

"A few people lined the streets of the business and industrial park that houses ZBB, hoping to get a glimpse of Obama's motorcade when it arrived."

"A few people lined the streets"? How do a few people line streets? Or even one street? Instead of saying something ridiculously nonsensical, why not admit it? When Obama came to Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, basically nobody gave a damn.

The AP, describing a case the Supreme Court recently turned down, writes: "the school valedictorian strayed from an approved text to provide a graphic account of Jesus' crucifixion..."

That piqued my curiosity, and not just because I teach "Religion and the Constitution" and want to know about the cases in the area. I wanted to know just how graphically a high school girl would describe the crucifixion in front of the assembled graduating class.

During McComb's speech at the Foothill High School graduation in 2006, officials turned off McComb's microphone when the school valedictorian strayed from an approved text to provide a graphic account of Jesus' crucifixion and credit God for her success in school.

How much piercing and blood-spurting and agonizing pain are we talking about? Did she go all "Passion of the Christ" on them? How long did the school authorities let her go before they freaked out about the Establishment Clause (or the deviation from the approved text) and kill the microphone?

Here's the video. Jesus comes up just after 2:00, when the student, Brittany McComb says "God's love is so great that he gave us his only son..." — and the microphone dies right there. Come on! That wasn't graphic. It wasn't even an account. And — since many Christians would think that God's giving us Jesus means the life he lived with us — it may not even refer to the crucifixion!