The Pope Supports a Reduction in the Capital Gains Tax!

Via Josh Marshall, I see that Dick Cheney has used an odd choice of material support for an American domestic agenda:

As a nation we recognize, as Pope John Paul II has written, that a fully human civilization shows respect and love for the elderly. And a just society ensures that elderly people can grow old with dignity. For that reason our nation established the Social Security system. And that is why, after 70 years, Social Security remains a fundamental commitment of both our political parties.

I didn't know the Pope had a position on the Social Security privatization issue. I'll look for the press release coming out of the Vatican. I know that a couple days ago, the Pope did make a statement about a Bush Administration policy. Then again, it was against the policy:

ROME - Pope John Paul II, who opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the Bush administration's policy of preventive war, criticized on Monday the "arrogance of power," which he said should be countered with reason and dialogue.

The pope made his remarks in a televised speech to an annual gathering of diplomats accredited to Vatican City and other dignitaries.

Meanwhile, a retired cardinal and former envoy said President Bush had assured him on the eve of the Iraq invasion that the war would be short.

Cardinal Pio Laghi, speaking during the broadcast on the Vatican's official Telepace service, described a conversation with Bush on March 5, 2003: "When I went to Washington as the pope's envoy just before the outbreak of the war, he told me, 'Don't worry, your eminence. We'll be quick and do well in Iraq.'

"Unfortunately, the facts have demonstrated afterward that things took a different course - not rapid and not favorable. Bush was wrong," Laghi said.

Laghi's comments reflected the pope's often-stated view, which he reiterated Monday. "Recourse to arms and violence has not only led to incalculable material damage, but also fomented hatred and increased the causes of tension," the pope said. "The arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good."

I think the Pope is one of them social conservatives who believes in an internationalist foreign policy and a liberal domestic agenda. In other words, a swing voter.