So as you may have noticed, I didn’t pay no nevermind to that leaked version of the eco-encyclical. A leaked encyclical is like a 1 oz bucktail on a drift tempting the bottom feeders to reach up and get hooked. No thanks. This is not my first rodeo.

I admit, my first thought was that the leak of this “draft” was a setup. That the sole purpose of the leak was to discredit those who ran with it and commented upon it. Even if that was not its purpose, it would certainly be the effect. I quickly made the decision not to comment upon it. In my defense, my cynicism is well earned.

So the real encyclical will come out tomorrow. I doubt very much if I will comment upon it until next week. I want the time to ponder what is in it, what is not, and the net effect of both. But this delay is merely a prudential one. I want to see where the argument is and make a determination about where it should be.

If it is a disaster, I will say it is a disaster. If it isn’t, I will say that too. But since I don’t care about blog hits anymore, I don’t see the rush to comment.

There will be people who rush to criticize it (even if legitimately) and there will be those who rush to defend it, no matter how indefensible parts of it may be. You know who those characters are and I don’t have to name names. I choose to sit this one out, at least for the initial scrum. But this is important, so I will likely weigh in on these issues.

This is just my prudential approach to dealing with the chaos these days. I am not interested in winning arguments, I am only interested in truth.

*subhead*A sucker’s bet.*subhead*