JESUS, FREAK. Mmm, that was a nice dinner. Wonder if there's something about the Terrible Obamatyranny of Birth Control for Catholics at National Review this evening... Oh, here we are, Michael Potemra:

The U.S. publication of the new biography Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel, by John Guy, could not be more fortunately timed: The recent controversy over the changing of HHS rules in a way that erodes previous protections for religious freedom has put the issue of church-state conflict near the top of the American agenda.

I wonder if they'll use this as a book cover blurb.

We all grew up with the story of the angry King Henry II thundering to his associates, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” As Guy points out, this phrasing is apocryphal. More reliable reports render what the king said as follows...

I see Potemra's a student of Amity Shlaes' "when in doubt, pad it out" journalistic method.

King Henry’s men got the message. (Which, incidentally, makes the assassination of Becket the first recorded instance of an executive-ordered drone strike against a domestic opponent.)

Seen a certain way, the graduation of Potemra from Catholic torture enthusiast ("Was it appropriate for a Catholic TV network to provide a platform for a torture advocate? In my view, the answer is yes") to opponent of drone strikes would be an advance. But that would presuppose you could believe anything Potemra says about morality.

The fate of the four assassins offers a cautionary tale about power and loyalty. Far from rewarding their deed, King Henry soon turned on them, and they ended their lives in exile; in the words of a chronicler cited by Guy, they “spent out their lives” in the East, “in fasting, vigils, prayers, and lamentations.” Just two decades after their assassination of Becket, a visitor to Jerusalem found their graves there, with the epitaph “Here lie those wretches who martyred the Blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury.”

Like I said, these guys are all about wish fulfillment. The Administration moves heaven and earth, so to speak, to provide contraception to non-observant employees of Catholics without requiring the Church to pay for it, and Potemra, having expanded this in his mind to an assault on his religion, warns by dire insinuation that all who serve the tyrant Obama -- yea, even unto Kathleen Sebelius! -- will be exiled and buried in unconsecrated ground.

Well, to each his own historical fantasies; I would rather fast forward some centuries to the day Henry VIII finally threw the Whore of Babylon out of England. Good times!  And Harry the Eight lies in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.