Posted 10:22 AM by Gene

The GIANT William Sloane Coffin Jr. has died (he MUST have been a giant -- The PAPER OF RE-CORD's obit runs four pages), and this reminds us in every age America has had its religious scoundrels, and ours has had more than others: Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, Louis Farrakhan. Coffin surely wasn't in their league for rascality, but he made up for it with his PROTESTS. He was, like Billy Graham, a politician first, and just as Graham used his life to suck up to presidents and Brezhnevs, so Coffin became a hero with the fashionable. He was a well-meaning rogue. And once again we're regaled with a charming tale:

Another Yale man of the time, President Bush, has spoken of a less affectionate memory: After Mr. Bush's father lost a Senate race in 1964 to Senator Ralph Yarborough, Dr. Coffin told the young man, then a freshman, student that he knew his father and that the better man had won. (Dr. Coffin disputed the anecdote.)

We'l just call it insensitivity in the name of a noble cause.

The Boat People and Killing Fields victims honor your memory.

P. S. The LAST GRAF:

"Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race," he declared, adding: "Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports — one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water; with liberty, justice and peace for all."

DO I HEAR THAT @#$%&* PINCH SOBBING?

P. P, S. The news broke yesterday; we wonder if the hacks have downplayed it because -- well, let's put it this way: the impoverished news factories have enough troubles.