Long-time readers know that my favorite "Simpsons" episode is "Bart on the Road," in which Bart and his cronies take a Spring Break road trip using a fake i.d. and a rental car. They end up in Knoxville, Tennessee. But the ruse Bart comes up with to fool the parents is that they'd "been selected to represent the school at the National Grammar Rodeo at the Sheraton Hotel in Canada."

Lisa, of course, sees right through this story, but Bart shuts her down by calling her, "as we say in Latin, a dorkus malorkus." But as it turns out, Slate informs me that there actually is something akin to a Grammar Rodeo in Canada. It's the Dictée des Amériques, a grammar competition held in Quebec. But it's only for Francophones, so I guess that makes Lisa a la dorkus malorkus.

I got an email from Stephen Dillard (a/k/a Feddie) last week. (Sorry; I've been out of town for a bit.) It had a link to a story about his post-Southern Appeal plans. I'll admit that I was pretty sure he was giving up the blog to run "Georgians for Brownback," so sure in fact that I didn't mention it publicly for fear he'd think I was an infiltrator or something.

Basically, Feddie and some like-minded individuals have decided to organize "Catholics Against Rudy," which is just what it sounds like. The Fedster's position is that it would be especially bad to elect a president who proclaims himself Catholic but doesn't meet their standards for co-religionists. This group is part of a larger effort among conservatives to derail Rudolph Giuliani's chances of getting the GOP nomination. For example, Focus on the Family's James Dobson says he won't vote in November 2008 if Rudy is the GOP nominee (or at least he won't vote Republican).

Feddie is perfectly free to sail on whatever swift boats he wants. But as I've said to him before when his principles came into conflict with whatever some apostate politician was doing, I'll believe it when I see it. Maybe Steve will write in "Joseph Ratzinger," but when it comes right down to it, I'm still highly dubious that far-righters will cut off their noses to spite their faces, especially if the end result is President Clinton.

I guess I'm Doubting Milbarge in this scenario, but I think the evidence is on my side. For one thing, no matter how many times I heard the phrase "dead to me" with regard to something President Bush has done, he still gets plenty of support from the far right. For another, according to the polls, it looks like social conservatives are willing to accept Giuliani, at least so far. Maybe that support is tenuous, pending Fred Thompson perhaps. But it's there, and it's giving Giluiani the cover to run with an eye toward the general election instead of the primaries.

Is Steve really prepared to accept Hillary Clinton nominating a few Justices to the Supreme Court? I would imagine the thought wakes him up in a cold sweat. I know that we have to keep in mind that "the lesser evil" is still evil, but given our two-party system, I just can't believe social conservatives won't see a qualitative difference between the candidates, even if one of them is Giuliani. So, like I said, maybe enough of these folks will abandon Rudy to swing the nomination or election, but I won't believe it until it actually happens.

Then again, maybe they'll vote against the guy on principle for once wearing such a bad combover. (This lovely picture lifted from The Politico.)