No disrespect to JP II (he's getting enough of that from other quarters), but I was really looking forward to a week or so of papist pundits frothing all over each other, trying to find new things to say about Pope Smoke. I must have been six when JP II was pope-ified, and the only thing I can remember is the Pope Smoke, cameras showing clips of the Pope Smoke for days until they finally picked him.

So they pick this new dude within 24 hours and I didn't get the barest whiff of Pope Smoke on CNN on Monday (although it was Lou Dobbs I was stuck watching in the cafeteria at work, and he's much too concerned about the INVASION of ILLEGALS, but still, can't he stop masticating foreigners long enough for a quick clip of Pope Smoke, and then back to his dimpled smirk?). I had to break down and search Google News with a few combinations of search terms before I could find a weak photo of some chimney, could have been a chimney anywhere in Europe. Oh well.