Charlie Crist may be having an identity crisis and the Florida Republican Party has decided to highlight that. Crist is a former Republican governor who is speaking at the Democratic National Convention in support of Barack Obama. The Florida GOP is running an ad against Crist in response to that.
I guess the ad could be interpreted different ways by different people. I had to watch it three times to figure out what it is trying to convey because I don’t consider the Bushes to be conservative. If you’re a liberal Democrat, though, the point the Florida GOP is trying to make here will likely be much more clear.
Carr’s retirement was announced in yesterday’s Washington Post. As you read through this announcement, keep in mind the leftward tilt of the Post in general as it heavily influences the language you see in Boorstein’s piece. She opines that we Catholics are worried – worried sick I tell you – about who will replace him. Why? Because Carr is a “dying breed: a Catholic moderate with a foot firmly in both camps”. Got that? I on the other hand have no worries at all. How could any replacement for Carr be any worse, unless he were Karl Marx himself?
Indeed.
Related posts around the blogosphere:
Deacon Greg is right that John Carr may be the most important Catholic (in Washington) that most people have never heard of.
Looking at this NYTimes report via Memeorandum, it appears to me that, with all due respect, the Obama Administration is off its proverbial rocker.
Nearly 16 months after first pledging to help Egypt’s failing economy, the Obama administration is nearing an agreement with the country’s new government to relieve $1 billion of its debt as part of an American and international assistance package intended to bolster its transition to democracy, administration officials said.
Apparently, the Obama Administration can’t tell the difference between a terrorist organization (which the Muslim Brotherhood is) and Republicans.
“They sound like Republicans half the time,” one administration official said, referring to leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was long banned from office under the former president, Hosni Mubarak, a close American ally.
Think we need American companies to build factories here in America? The Obama Administration wants them in Egypt.
Hoping to capitalize on what they see as a ripening investment climate, the State Department and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will take executives from nearly 50 American companies, like Caterpillar and Xerox, to Cairo beginning Saturday as part of one of the largest trade delegations ever. The officials and executives will urge the government to make changes in taxation, bankruptcy and labor laws to improve the investment climate.
The Obama Administration still thinks the problem with terrorism is that Egyptians hate America.
“It’s important for the U.S. to give Egypt a reason to look to the West, as well as the East,” said Lionel Johnson, the chamber’s vice president for the Middle East and North Africa.
At Assyrian International News Agency, there is an article giving a brief overview of the Black Sunday Massacre in Baghdad showing that the nature of Islamic terrorism should not be seen as one confined to national boundaries. Rather, its nature is one of Islamic jihad against Christians worldwide. Further, as is indicated in the included video, the terrorists view the Vatican as the key influence of Christendom in the world.
The failures of government officials in both parties here in America to recognize the nature of this jihad as being more anti-Christian than anti-American in nature has only led to more power for the most radical elements in the Muslim world.
George Vogt went to the Catholic New Media Conference, something I didn’t know was going on until it was already underway. I didn’t get the memo. I hope I’m not committing any Catholic blog heresies. If so, please be sure not to tell me. I kind of do things my own way around here.
If I write something that’s truly heretical in regard to Catholic teaching, though, please be sure to let me know.
In a NYTimes article on the influence of Valerie Jarrett in the White House, we find mention of a perception about the contraception mandate that continues to escape many. It is that the Obama White House and their pro-abortion friends treat pregnancy as a disease.
Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church were up in arms last fall over a proposal to require employers to provide health insurance that covered birth control. But caving in to the church’s demands for a broad exemption in the name of religious liberty would pit the president against a crucial constituency, women’s groups, who saw the coverage as basic preventive care.
The “women’s groups” that the White House listens to are the pro-abortion ones, and they do see contraception coverage as “basic preventive care.” Pregnancy, to them, is a disease.
Where does this thinking come from? Bad leaders perpetuate this idea, and Barack Obama is one of those bad leaders. You may recall his troubling remark on the campaign trail back in 2008 when he referred to unintended pregnancy as being “punished with a baby.”
When political leaders make statements like this, they are preaching on what our values should be. All politicians make moral arguments to defend their positions. In this, they shape the values of the country. The argument made by Barack Obama back in 2008 — “punished with a baby” — is not morally neutral. It’s a statement that babies conceived under less than desirable circumstances are “punishment.” Because the president sees babies as “punishment” — at least, when they are conceived under less than desirable circumstances — pregnancy is seen by the White House as a disease.The contraception mandate, then, is inherently based on a moral argument that contradicts Catholic teaching in that same area.
Either babies are “punishment” or they are not “punishment.” Either pregnancy is a “disease” or it is not a “disease.” One must believe that babies are bad in order to view contraception as “basic preventive care.” One must adopt a moral argument on the issue of the worth of an unborn child in order to accept the idea that contraception is “basic preventive care.” If you believe that pregnancy is a “disease” that requires the “basic preventive care” of contraception, then you have made a moral claim about pregnancy, and you have made a claim on morals that contradicts Catholic teaching. You force a fight with the Catholic Church by forcing Catholics to accept, as a matter of civil law, the Left’s definition of pregnancy as “disease” and babies as “punishment.”
Unfortunately, I have only seen brief mention of this point from Cardinal Dolan.
The Catholic Church defends religious liberty, including freedom of conscience, for everyone. The Amish do not carry health insurance. The government respects their principles. Christian Scientists want to heal by prayer alone, and the new health-care reform law respects that. Quakers and others object to killing even in wartime, and the government respects that principle for conscientious objectors. By its decision, the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the consciences of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.
Certainly, our freedom of conscience as Catholics is under severe threat, but let us not forget what this threat is rooted in. It is rooted in the idea that babies are “punishment” and pregnancy is a “disease.” It’s an idea that Barack Obama was touting back on the campaign trail in 2008. I don’t recall any Church leaders issuing statements against his claim back then.
I mention this not because I want anyone to have resentments about what could have been, but rather to show that we can prevent a lot of heartache if we simply point these things out very clearly before they get out of hand. Mitt Romney’s recent flip-flop to a pro-abortion position would be a good example of something that should have been condemned loudly as soon as it happened, else our failure to do so may come back to bite us all later.
