Excuse me, but being confronted by a mob of students isn't a very good justification for becoming a conservative--especially for someone who is supposed to be a great intellectual.

Great intellectuals can certainly sort the wheat from the chaff, and should be able to distinguish between a mob mentality/confrontation, and genuine intellectual arguments. I mean, that is just about as dumb as the "everyone was in the Hitler Youth" defense.

My take on this is Ratzinger's involvement in the Hitler Youth, regardless of whether it was "innocent" or "a youthful indiscretion" (as I heard it described on the news last night) should have disqualified him, or anyone else who served the Nazis, from ever being pope.

In this day and age, THAT ought to be a no-brainer! "No Nazis Need Apply". Well, duh!

You can't claim to be apologizing to the Jews and asking their forgiveness, while simultaneously electing someone pope who once served the Nazis in Germany.

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist OR a gifted intellectual to figure that one out.