“MY GUESS IS that Edward and Leni are together in the next world. They have eternity to work out the implications of their work,” said Andrei Codrescu in a segment titled “Leni and Eddie” on NPR’s “All Things Considered” last Friday. Codrescu’s vision of “Eddie” (Teller) and “Leni” (Riefenstahl) sitting side by side as the flames tickle their toes is clever imagery, but the musings that lead up to this snapshot of the afterlife are jumbled at best and, at worst, declare a moral equivalency.

Edward Teller and Leni Riefenstahl both died earlier this month–one day apart, as it happened–and this coincidence prompted Codrescu to share his thoughts on the similar results of the lives of the “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb” and the director of “Triumph of the Will.”