Box Office Mojo estimates that the box office receipts for "The DaVinci Code" for this weekend will drop to $33.5 million, a 56.5 percent drop from last weekend's opening, and the biggest percentage drop among the top ten movies. One reason is the fourth-largest opening on record for "X-Men 3: The Last Stand," estimated to land $107 million.

If the blog seems too slow for you on the holiday weekend, there's always the opportunity to read our report on "The Trashing of the Christ," or how the networks rained fire on "The Passion" and gleefully went on the road for the "Code."

Kelly Boggs of Baptist Press surveyed how film critics were disappointed that someone sanded down the jagged anti-Christian edges of Dan Brown's novel.

Could there be a new sheriff on the block at Fox News Watch?  Brash lefty Neal Gabler often manages to get the last word, but on last evening's show he was soundly put in his place by National Review editor Rich Lowry, substituting for Cal Thomas.

The topic was the recent press leaks that have compromised a number of highly-classified anti-terrorism programs including the secret prisons for Al-Qaeda members, the monitoring of Al-Qaeda related phone calls and the gathering of phone calling patterns. 

Predictably, Gabler was highly critical of the prospect of the government going against those who, by publishing the leaks, potentially cause significant damage to our national security interests:

Some readers may have forgotten about this. Some may not have been alive at the time. However, thirty years ago this past April, as America was in the process of celebrating its bicentennial, Chicago Cubs centerfielder Rick Monday, a former Marine Corps Reservist, made one of the greatest plays in baseball history…but it didn’t involve a ball, a bat, or a glove.

As protestors were trying to set fire to an American flag in the centerfield of Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, Monday darted by, grabbed Old Glory, and saved her from a disturbing fate in front of a huge Chavez Ravine crowd.

According to Inside Baseball: “This moment and the symbol it represented – freedom, history and those who have lost their lives in battle to save Old Glory – had countless Americans talking; from politicians in Washington, D.C. and throughout the country to military veterans to everyday people. It was ranked as one of the top 100 classic moments in baseball history by the National Baseball Hall of Fame committee and third on Sporting News’ list as the most ‘unusual’ moment to occur on a major league baseball field.”

This marvelous video (hat tip to reader Airforce_5_0) is a four-minute tribute to the event, including video footage, and interviews with Monday as well as then Dodger third-base coach Tommy Lasorda. Enjoy.

Update: A full transcript of this video along with another picture of the event follow courtesy of MLB.

Here's more proof that John Kerry's thinking hard about running for president again. On the front page of the Sunday New York Times, reporter Kate Zernike insists Kerry is now getting ready to really attack Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as a pack of liars, and Kerry devotees are raising money and have hired a researcher to back up Kerry's version of events, even on problematic claims like his "Christmas in Cambodia" tale. Zernike buries the lede in paragraph nine:

Mr. Kerry, accused even by Democrats of failing to respond to the charges during the campaign, is now fighting back hard. "They lied and lied and lied about everything," Mr. Kerry says in an interview in his Senate office. "How many lies do you get to tell before someone calls you a liar? How many times can you be exposed in America today?"

NBC's David Gregory wasn't the only liberal reporter who just had to emphasize The Economist magazine's cover calling President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair the "Axis of Feeble." At CJR Daily, Paul McLeary noted it became a hot trend. So why would this bother liberal Columbia Journalism Review folks? Because it's lazy. "Great headline," said McLeary, but "The sad thing is, they all probably thought they were being funny and original, and in a sense they were -- but in lockstep. And that's what strikes us as feeble."

It seems what the media likes in this is how it turns Bush's phrase back on itself, and comments on how both Bush and Blair are lame-duck leaders. But if they are "feeble," er, what about the sub-par politicians who couldn't seem to defeat their attempts at re-election? Here's McLeary's roundup of mentions: