WEDGE-ISSUE POLITICS IS THE LAST REFUGE OF A SCOUNDREL

The Hill reports:

In celebration of Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s elevation to cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI earlier this week, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) on Thursday suggested lighting the Empire State Building the color red....

Grimm, a Catholic himself who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, tweeted in celebration on Thursday: "I have requested that the Empire State Bldg be lit red to honor NY's Cardinal Dolan. What an honor for an exceptional man of faith!"

That would be this Michael Grimm:

Shortly before leaving the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006, after a swashbuckling undercover career that would later help catapult him into Congress, a young agent named Michael G. Grimm went into real estate, investing roughly $1 million of borrowed money in a luxury development in Texas.

Seeking a builder to cooperate on the project, Mr. Grimm chose a former F.B.I. agent who had served with him in New York -- even though the former agent was under indictment on state racketeering and fraud charges, according to court and property records.

The former agent, Carlos Luquis, was soon convicted for his role in skimming $2 million from Texans' electric bills, and served 18 months in prison.

Yet Mr. Grimm went on to do business with Mr. Luquis and his wife in two other companies, records show. And during Mr. Grimm's successful insurgent campaign for Congress in 2010, Mr. Luquis was frequently at his side....

Shortly after news of this and other Grimm scandals broke in The New York Times, the Mitt Romney campaign, which had used the tea party-backed Grimm as a surrogate, distanced itself from Grimm. Grimm's backers, however, have rallied around him:

...at an event on Saturday, Grimm turned the serious allegations into a joke about his dog, Sebastian, biting the mailman for carrying the Times. Former Staten Island [borough president] and Congressman Guy Molinari exercised his old-man impunity: "I was going to take a copy of The New York Times and ignite it, but Sebastian beat me to it; he shit all over the paper...Friends, don't ever give up your principles, and don't let these shit-ass newspapers tell you what to do."

Which is more or less what Jesus would have said under similar circumstances, right?

Grimm is playing the Catholic card knowing full well that the Empire State Building has a policy against religious commemorations of the kind he's requested. And, in fact, ESB has turned down Grimm's request. Oh, and just to gild the lily, Grimm pandered even more by evoking September 11 in his request letter:

As a city living in the shadow of 9/11 and in the midst of a terrible recession, it's clear that New Yorkers face a world that increasingly appears to be beyond their control. We truly live in an uncertain time; however, few can do as much as Cardinal Dolan has done to give New Yorkers a sense of constancy and resolve.

Dolan, by the way, didn't become archbishop of New York until 2009. God only knows how we survived from 9/11 until then without him.