Diane Sawyer is just about as politically sophisticated as Tom Sawyer

Diane Sawyer, a former flunky for Richard Nixon during the Watergate years and now a host on ABC's morning show, distinguished herself today by displaying her ignorance of how the filibuster process works in the U.S. Senate.

In recent months, Senate Republicans have been signaling their willingness to filibuster anything having to do with the Iraq War. It's been in all the papers, but Sawyer seems not to have grasped the situation.

And now that Harry Reid and the Democrats are threatening to force the Republicans to wage a real filibuster, not just a pro forma version of such, Sawyer's become more confused than usual.

Said she this morning: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to filibuster, talking all night to close out all topics besides a vote on Iraqi troop withdrawals."

Right-wing bloviator Fred Barnes, a guest on the show, chose not to correct Sawyer, preferring instead to compound her error with this bit of brilliance: "In effect, you know, Harry Reid is going to keep everybody in the Senate overnight. All he's doing is filibustering his own bill..."

It's a Republican filibuster, people, a Republican filibuster. It's an effort by Republicans to prevent an up-and-down vote on setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. A majority of Senators favor such a timetable, but the Republican filibuster sets the bar at 60-percent just to get a vote on the underlying legislation.

Do you understand now, Diane?

Religious fanatics disrupt U.S. Senate

I told you last night of the fuss among some right-wing Christians over the news that a Hindu cleric would deliver the opening invocation today in the U.S. Senate.

Well, the invocation was delivered, but only after the cops hauled off several self-described "Christian patriots" who had shouted their disapproval.

It's scary to think that there actually are millions of Americans who want religious freedom only for themselves -- which, of course, isn't freedom at all.

POSTSCRIPT: The virtuous adventures of a few other Christian patriots are reported here.

Yipes! Hindu to deliver prayer in U.S. Senate

The American Family Association, which claims to support religious freedom in America, has got its undies in a bunch over news that a Hindu cleric will deliver the opening invocation tomorrow in the U.S. Senate.

AFA spokesman Buddy Smith says Christians should "hold lawmakers accountable" for this outrageous promotion of paganism.

"I fear that while God has been so merciful with our country in the past, events such as are about to happen, like this in the U.S. Senate, is angering a just God," says Smith. "I fear that we bring judgment upon our country with such acts."

Whoa! I'm going to lie low tomorrow, just in case. I think I'll hide in the basement.

(By the way, be sure to check the comments at the bottom of the AFA article to which a link is provided in the first paragraph above. They're pretty rabid.)