At this very moment, in America, a vice president is being created. Information is leaking out ofclosed roomsabout people sitting in rooms with people discussing people. And now that the time has arrived, peopleother than Iare engaging in futile speculation and petty criticism. The premier entry in that category comes today courtesy of Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall, who has unearthed shockingexorcism-relateddocuments about Louisiana governor, VP possibility, and Catholic convert Bobby Jindal.

The general gist of the story is that while Jindal was in college he was party to an exorcism performed on a friend of his – presumably in a dorm room or other semi-private location – by several other laypersons. While this practice has almost nothing in common with the suburban brand of Catholicism I am familiar with, I did attend a Catholic high school and thus was inculcated with a sort of cautious distance from this kind of thing. This despite the fact that I am actually a non-practicing Episcopalian (yes, I foolishly chose thedeath).

So I feel qualified, having accurately forecasted the Jindal-speculating that is now upon us and having incredulously listened to otherwise normal priests discuss matter-of-factly the matter of exorcism, to declare attacking Jindal’s weird exorcism story a Legitimately Bad Idea.

The last time attacks on Jindal’s particular brand of Catholicism came around, they turned out tomassively backfireagainst the Louisiana Democratic Party. Not only is it generally bad politics to attack religion (unless, of course, that religion is Islam and then, hey,go nutswithwhateversorts ofinsane allegationsyou’d like to make) but it is especially bad politics to attack someone who converted from an “exotic” religion (Hinduism, in this case) to a safely “American” religion (“Charismatic” Catholicism). People like to feel good about stories such asJindal’sand one disrupts that at one’s peril. Especially when Jindal is putting his stamp on nakedly ideological bills like theLouisiana Science Education Actwhich do quite enough discrediting on their own.

Of course, none of this selection is certain, and perhaps all this preemptive umbrage-taking will be wasted. But as Jindal seems to havebacked offsome of his initial opposition to the VP idea, there’s still a good – and growing – chance.