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• Ron Byers on February 10, 2012 8:55 AM:

  This is an awfully small issue for such a big meltdown. Maybe we should investigate the power of the Catholic Church over the political chatter class. How many of the big time talking heads are good Catholic anyway?

  My own view is the newsmakers in Washington are afraid the Presidential race is going to get pretty one sided pretty early and are doing everything they can to create difficulties for Obama. If there is no horse race they will have to ask themselves why, and they won't like the answer.

• theAmericanist on February 10, 2012 8:57 AM:

  "who can blame everyone else for reacting just as mechanically?"

  So, um: why are you part of the mechanism, Ed?

  You've consistently misrepresented the issue as access to contraception, instead of the government forcing religious institutions to either violate doctrine, serve only those of their faith, or close.

  You eagerly embraced shallow and misleading polling data.

  And you've never noted that 1) the ACA is an act of Congress that did NOT mandate the HHS attack on religion, 2) Congress is gonna overturn this, and 3) so will the Supreme Court, if it ever gets there.

  There are REASONS the administration is backing away from this as fast as possible -- but you'd never know it from reading your posts.

• walt on February 10, 2012 9:03 AM:

  "Matter of conscience" = Republican-manufactured hysteria. There is no issue here except for the people who wax wroth more about women controlling their fertility than they do a church routinely covering up child rape. Let's stop pretending there's any kind of equivalency between respecting actual human beings' health and the inveterate need of privileged white males to play the victim card in arguments that put their status above that of women.

• esaud on February 10, 2012 9:07 AM:

  I don't get it. The group the GOP is throwing the red meat to here will never in a million years vote for Obama, so why go there?

  OBama should know by now that there is no grand bargain, no common ground. The GOPers are seeking to destroy him, and the Bishops will never quit.

  If Obama went on TV and made a speech about his position, it would sound perfectly reasonable, because it is. Let the Bishops take him to court if they really want to lay their cards on the table.

• Anonymous on February 10, 2012 9:08 AM:

  This nontrovresy was announced three weeks ago, to barely a mewl. Since then, we've had some pretty bright economic news which caused Republicans to to whinge about a Clint Eastwood commercial and look like the obnoxious toddlers that they are. Voila'! With the usual help from the "librul" media, firestorm and outrage! And no one's talking about good economic news. works every time.

• stevio on February 10, 2012 9:10 AM:

  Minga. Just take to the bully pulpit and speak for 10 minutes . The bull poo being slung by the liars and hypocrites would be canceled out with a 10 minute news conference...

  Nauseating...

• mphillip on February 10, 2012 9:13 AM:

  A posting that is tiring in its sameness:

  A call for the President to do something - when he has said 2ce that he is willing to rethink implementation of the birth control rule, but not its substance.

  I am not clear why the President's/candidate's pattern is not clear: Allow the 24/7 noise/spinning/bellowing at the moon to expend itself because there is absolutely no way to be heard over thousands of postings like this/over 60 Catholic Matthews crew/CPAC...

  Better to wait until the story is maybe the 3rd story on the morning shows, and then repeat what has already been said at least TWICE.

  So: I'm heading over to Maddow and company, where any critique (as opposed to easy "criticism") of the President is not quite so...

  predictable.

  In fact, the most insightful meta analysis of this birth control "controversy" was the conversation between Chris Hayes and Maddow, as they both named the "controversy" as an intellectually lazy return to the political fault lines of the 80s and early 90s - while the country has moved to another place on many cultural issues. I see this in people like Matthews who cling (as in guns?) to their Catholic identities in a political arena where white ethnicity is no longer a voting "bloc" that can shift elections.

  Didn't mean to go on, but I just get so tired...but the internet is a big place, huh?
  

• wvng on February 10, 2012 9:17 AM:

  MoJo’s Nick Baumann does some actual reporting and discovers that President Obama’s “unprecedented assault on America’s religious freedoms” by requiring church-related hospitals and universities to cover contraception at the federal level has actually been on the books throughout the Bush years. http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/controversial-obama-birth-control-rule-already-law

• Ron Byers on February 10, 2012 9:20 AM:

  theAmericanist, the rule has been in place in many states for a long time. It hasn't been a big thing until now. The reason it is now is simple, the Bishops are taking sides in the election. This isn't about principle or doctrine. It is all about politics and manufactured outrage.

• Danny on February 10, 2012 9:21 AM:

  This is just Obama's usual rope-a-dope, exploiting conservatives' obsession with winning the 24h news cycle. The administration is inviting the Right to go all in on this, fully expecting to take some small damage. They want the repubs to define themselves as anti-women and anti womens health. This is a choice election, right?

  We already know what the administrations next move is going to be: offering to mandate insurance companies offer contraception free of charge, where e.g. a catholic business wants a conscience exception. Thus the issue becomes the free choice of the employee rather than the religious freedom of the employer.

  The Repubs were on shaky ground from the start, contraception being popular. Will they keep pushing when the issue's evolved to whether they have the right to prevent their employees to get contraceptives covered - even when they're not paying for them themselves? If they do they may find getting traction with women voters hard in the general...

  Don't be such a timid liberal. 1988 was 25 years ago.

• Sgt. Gym Bunny on February 10, 2012 9:23 AM:

  I'm really starting to wonder whether that little green man who issues official 'Publican talking-point is actually some dastardly evil librul, slowly egging on the GOP to take ridiculously stances just to watch the GOP implode and go down in flames... That reverse psychology type of stuff. I wonder if Obama is intentionally being mum just let the GOOPERS talk themselves into doom...

• berttheclock on February 10, 2012 9:25 AM:

  @Mphillip, excellent observation, but, I suggest you follow your viewing with another Catholic, Lawrence O'Donnell, who has addressed this as a Labor Law (Employer-employee) issue and not a constitutional issue. He sides with the Administration.

• KK on February 10, 2012 9:27 AM:

  I think he should let them keep trolling on about this. Maybe 1 in 10 Catholics don't use birth control. Who the heck wants to pay for it? In NY we used to and it always seemed to me to be dumb for an insurance company not to cover it. Pregnancy is expensive, simple as that. This is losing issue for the R's, let the go on. BTW, who listens to a Bishop these days? Even among Catholics they have zero credibility after the child abuse scandals. The theater of American Absurdism continues....

• T2 on February 10, 2012 9:34 AM:

  I agree with Byers, the Media is just cooking up a "controversy" because this years presidential contest looks very one-sided.
  The Media is overlooking the fact that over half the states currently have laws to accomplish exactly what Obama is proposing....in fact his act is more political than substantive...just re-enforcing what is already pretty much the law of the land.
  

• J on February 10, 2012 9:36 AM:

  So why are these catholic institutions getting tax exemptions, also federal (our) tax money, and at the same time meddling in politics?

• Barbara on February 10, 2012 9:38 AM:

  Further to wvng: what has changed is the extent to which the product/service must be provided as preventive care without copayment, and this is true whether or not the underlying coverage offers prescription drugs. So the benefit is more expansive in that sense, but since nearly every health plan in America covers drugs, the big change is the lower cost to the member.

  I think the president would be wise to explain that these are the ONLY differences for plans that already cover prescription drugs. In addition, I do think Obama should say that what the opponents are asking for is essentially the right to gut any health care benefit for an employee, no matter how important, or how expensive, and the result would be virtually no protection for employees, as well as chaos.

• mphillip on February 10, 2012 9:47 AM:

  To Danny:

  And also:

  There is some reframing that has to happen to remind people that anti birth control is an animating issue for only a sliver of the country AND sliver of Catholics (full disclosure: I am Catholic).

  So: The meeting, I think, with Democratic Senators and the Boxer, Murray, et al press conference after the meeting was part of the reframing...

  And then there's the Bloomberg story about the path to this moment: The full realization that the Administration saw the Bishops coming (yes, Chris Matthews: They saw the Bishops coming), and the President ultimately agreed with the women in the Administration according to the story leaked to Bloomberg.

  The reframing: This is a woman's issue, and full access to birth control was won over many decades (maybe a century's worth) of struggle.

  There is a version of the "stand still" piece of advice in the African American community, and perhaps is rooted in the Black church faith tradition of letting God "take over":

  Stand still.

  I sometimes like to think of the President "standing still" in that tradition, but not so that God takes over necessarily, but just waiting until the spinners dissolve into a puddle of incoherence.

  AKA: rope-a-dope.

• mphillip on February 10, 2012 9:48 AM:

  To Danny:

  And also:

  There is some reframing that has to happen to remind people that anti birth control is an animating issue for only a sliver of the country AND sliver of Catholics (full disclosure: I am Catholic).

  So: The meeting, I think, with Democratic Senators and the Boxer, Murray, et al press conference after the meeting was part of the reframing...

  And then there's the Bloomberg story about the path to this moment: The full realization that the Administration saw the Bishops coming (yes, Chris Matthews: They saw the Bishops coming), and the President ultimately agreed with the women in the Administration according to the story leaked to Bloomberg.

  The reframing: This is a woman's issue, and full access to birth control was won over many decades (maybe a century's worth) of struggle.

  There is a version of the "stand still" piece of advice in the African American community, and perhaps is rooted in the Black church faith tradition of letting God "take over":

  Stand still.

  I sometimes like to think of the President "standing still" in that tradition, but not so that God takes over necessarily, but just waiting until the spinners dissolve into a puddle of incoherence.

  AKA: rope-a-dope.

• berttheclock on February 10, 2012 9:53 AM:

  The day I pay any attention to the Catholic Bishops will be the day I hear them pour out their collective outrage of the coverups by the Church over the priests who preyed on young boys in the US, Ireland and other countries. They are Hypocrites of the highest order.

• theAmericanist on February 10, 2012 9:53 AM:

  It is generally a good idea in any political dispute to do two different things before you pick a fight -- if only as a warmup.

  First, lay out your own argument -- and ATTACK it. Find the weak places, e.g., Byers' nonsense: "theAmericanist, the rule has been in place in many states for a long time. It hasn't been a big thing until now. "

  Um, perhaps you missed the part where in ALL of those states, religious institutions self-insure, so the requirement is moot. The HHS rule would ban that. So this is different. D-uh.

  Second, make your opponent's case, and measure its strongest places against the weakest points on your side.

  The basic clash is between the White House framing ("this is about access to contraception') and the religious liberty framing ('HHS would force religious institutions to either violate doctrine, hire and serve only those of their own faith, or close.') Which one is more accurate -- and thus, has both legs and leverage?

  The religious liberty framing. This isn't about access to contraception, because employees of religious institutions can buy it. But it IS true that the HHS rule would force religious institutions to pay for a product which violates their faith. QED.

  Once you've done those two exercises, apply discipline: recognize when arguments are secondary, or even tertiary, and especially those that are distractions. For exampel, who fucking cares if Larry O'Donnell thinks this is legit under labor law?

  Is he on the Supreme Court? Why would anybody even bring it up, that he has an opinion about the labor law here? It's a bit more important that Congress is gonna hand the President his head on this one, with substantial Democratic support.

  Part of discipline is to identify when you're making a political argument (rather than a substantive one), so you can check to see what your assumptions are. F'r instance, (I keep pointing this out), it doesn't matter at ALL that some huge percentage of American Catholics disregard doctrine. (Catholics also tell lies and shoplift, now and then, but we don't expect the government to force the church to PAY us for it.)

  It's REALLY important, especially when you're counting on public support, to have polling data that follows the Rule of 4 for at least two different ways to frame the question, so you can measure not just pro and con, but also intensity and -- critically -- what moves votes. That is, the proposition that nobody actually pays attention to the Bishops, etc., is an empirical question (note the SEVEN Democratic Senators who have come out against HHS.)

  I expect today's announcement will be exactly what I predicted days ago, that religious organizations won't pay but insurers will.

  But here's WHY: I expect the Rule of 4 polling on this showed that when it's framed the way you guys do (access to contraception) it's the usual 60/40 split: 20 percent strongly for, 40 percent sorta for; 10 percent sorta against, and 30 percent strongly against. A smart analysis (as opposed to Ed's polemics) recognize that's a weak place to be -- your squishies are four times the # of their squishies, and their intensity beats yours 3-2.

  Then you frame it the other way ('should religious institutions be forced to pay for a service they find morally wrong?') , and I expect you get as much as 70-30 for religious liberty: 10 percent strongly yes (cuz it's contraception), 20 percent sorta yes; 30 percent sorta no, and 40 percent strongly no. That is a BAD place to be -- even though their squishies now outnumber yours 3-2, their intensity has gone up to FOUR times what you have on your side.

  Throw in that the House (with a divided Democratic leadership) and the Senate (with SEVEN Democrats, and counting) were gonna overturn HHS, and there is simply no way this makes any sense for the White House.

  How come that was so hard for you guys to see?

• Grumpy on February 10, 2012 10:01 AM:

  First GOP knock against Obama: he'll surrender to enemies.
  Second GOP knock against Obama: he's waging a war against religion.
  The upshot: Obama will surrender in the war against religion. Which is... good?

• Jilli on February 10, 2012 10:12 AM:

  The most ridiculous aspect of this whole broo-ha-ha is that the Catholic leaders are fighting to make the government regulations comply with their religious beliefs on birth control - beliefs that very little if any Catholics actually abide by. It's ridiculous.

  And while the church hierarchy are retaining their "religious liberty and freedom" they are depriving many others of benefits who, just like the Catholics, don't abide by their religious teachings. It's just ridiculous - it's about control by the church by the same bastards that covered up and propagated child rape. And they have the audacity to try and take the moral high ground! Argh!

• Anonymous on February 10, 2012 10:15 AM:

  and I expect you get as much as 70-30 for religious liberty...

  For someone writing a looooong post about applying due diligence, you then pull numbers out of your ass?? Afraid you lost me. But thanks for the then who can blame everyone else for reacting just as mechanicall civics lesson.

• theAmericanist on February 10, 2012 10:18 AM:

  LOL -- the odd thing is that the White House GAVE it to them.

  Look at Ed's framing: "If.... the administration’s decision-making process on this highly technical subject really does come down to tediously predictable battle-lines of gender and faith, then who can blame..." um, people like Ed for never bothering to figure out that this was NOT a matter of pro-choice principle, but a narrow question involving only a few people, namely employees of religious institutions who want their insurance to pick up the cost of contraception?

  It's not like this one was a hard question, substantively: exempt the religious institutions from paying for what violates their doctrine, and require the insurers to supply contraception at cost.

• DAY on February 10, 2012 10:19 AM:

  Waaay too many people conflate this administration with the previous one.

  As some of us have known since day one, and others are just now learning, this one is smarter.

• Bobsled on February 10, 2012 10:19 AM:

  We should require religious organizations to provide contraception as part of their health care plans. If it offends their flock, they have no obligation to utilize the benefit.

• theAmericanist on February 10, 2012 10:20 AM:

  LOL -- anonymous, since I predicted everything that has happened in this for about a week now, I figure I've earned a certain cred.

  But cuz you doubt my 70/30, kindly consult John Sides article on the Monthly site regarding pro-choice/pro-life polling -- then come back and apologize, k?

• Sgt. Gym Bunny on February 10, 2012 10:24 AM:

  KK @ February 10, 2012 9:27 AM said: ...it always seemed to me to be dumb for an insurance company not to cover it. Pregnancy is expensive.

  Good point. I'd add that children are expensive as well, which is I certainly don't have any and don't expect to have any in the near future(unless I can find a rich pig to father me a love child).

  So these bishops think that the costs of covering prenatal care, C-Sections/48-hour labor deliveries, and post-natal care for the next 26 years is worth making a big ol' bruhaha over covering some rinky-dinky pills or an an IUD? And that doesn't even include the extra logistical costs of maternity leave per child. I guess money really ain't a thing to them...

• DenguyFL on February 10, 2012 10:25 AM:

  @Americanist: You are correct that ACA is an act of congress. In that act, it was left up to HHS to write the rules. If they did not want any particular rule to be up to HHS, that should have been spelled out in ACA.

  On the constitutionality when separate suits were brought against California and New York by Catholic Charities the courts upheld nearly the same rule. The courts relied on a definition of "religious employer" as:
  The organization's primary purpose is "the inculcation of religious values."
  -It primarily employs people of that religion.
  -It primarily serves people of that religion.
  -It's a registered nonprofit organization.

  On the point of mandating coverage fro contraceptives. ACA does not rewuire any employer to provide health insurance for their employees. What is says is that if you don't provide coverage, you pay a per employee fine. Don't want to provide coverage? Fine. Pay the fine and throw you employees into the state exchanges. Problem solved.

  There is a much larger motive on the part of the Catholic church here, however. Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S.Conference of Catholic Bishops has already made clear that this they want the rule thrown out for everyone.

  Those against this rule can make any law the wish. Obama still has the veto pen and Harry Reid controls the Senate docket, so we are again wasting time when there are much more pressing issues to be dealt with.

• navarro on February 10, 2012 10:29 AM:

  i find it remarkable that some people are treating this as if the bishops were being required to personally hand out birth control pills to everyone that works for them.

  what is being required is that religious owned businesses, not churches, but businesses will be required to purchase health insurance plans which include coverage for the basic health needs of half of the population. no one is being forced to use contraceptives by this rule.

  the eeoc made this a requirement of employer-based healthcare plans in 2000 but it didn't become an issue until it became part of the implementation of the aca.

• FlipYrWhig on February 10, 2012 10:30 AM:

  @theAmericanist : what's at issue is precisely the concept of a "religious institution." IMHO a church is a religious institution, but a hospital, university, or charitable organization affiliated with a particular church is not. The litmus tests have to do with whether the organization predominantly employs and serves members of that church.

  Also at issue is the status of what counts, from a secular legal perspective, as the beliefs of a faith. IMHO "religious liberty" doesn't apply to every last thing a faith believes. Religious liberty is about the freedom to _worship_. The government can't stop you from going to church, from praying, from rituals and contemplative practices. But even there there are lines you can't cross, like if your faith demanded human sacrifice. Catholic leaders may think contraception is a grievously evil thing, but, you know, Buddhists are vegetarians and yet a Buddhist charity wouldn't be able to kick meat-eaters off the company health plan, because (1) that's on the conscience of the person who does the sinful thing, not the employer whose business provides the paycheck, and (2) prohibitions against birth control and eating meat are teachings of the faiths but not matters of worship.

  Without this concept of worship as distinct from religious tenets and teachings, it's not hard to imagine all kinds of laughable things the government would have to allow, like a church saying its belief in prosperity meant its members didn't have to pay taxes.

  And as to the question of what would happen to a hospital that wanted to remain "Catholic" in the capacious sense of adhering to Catholic doctrines on health, life, and death, I would say that, yes, the only way for them to be perfectly sure of that would be to hire and serve only Catholics. If you want to do business in a secular world, you have to adhere to the secular law.

• Danny on February 10, 2012 10:33 AM:

  "and 30 percent strongly against [...] and 40 percent strongly no"

  But the question is: those 30, 40 percent - how many of those were prone to vote Obama anyway? He loses them on abortion anyway. About 30 percent supported Bush through the end of his Presidency. 46 percent voted McCain.

  I'd say this is a wedge issue that brings the independents who went Obama in 08 back to him. They don't like the evangelical right. They may not feel strongly about this particular issue but it puts the republican nominees squarely with the evangelicals.

  It's a silent majority dynamic. It wasn't just weed that hurt McGovern - it was "acid, amnesty and abortion". He had been defined as belonging to a group of what the mushy middle had come to view as extreme liberals. Thats the danger for the repubs - winning the battle, losing the war.

• FlipYrWhig on February 10, 2012 10:36 AM:

  @ Navarro -- not only that bishops were being forced to hand out pills themselves, but that their unwilling parishioners were being forced to swallow them! That's what's really galling. Just because you have to provide coverage for a medical treatment under an insurance plan doesn't mean that everyone, or anyone, on the plan is going to use it. An Catholic observant of church doctrines should be able to have a benefit that includes sinful, wicked contraception and avoid the temptation of using it, no? And if a non-Catholic uses that benefit, is that any worse than a non-Jew being uncircumcised or a non-Mormon drinking coffee?

• Trollop on February 10, 2012 10:37 AM:

  This is what you get when you pander to lunatics. Talk to me about persecution after you start paying taxes for your control freak "philanthropy".

• Diane Rodriguez on February 10, 2012 10:41 AM:

  I heard an audio clip of Biden last night and it was a nervous repetition of something to the effect of "we'll work it out." After that I began wondering if what seems to be a stutter from the WH has more to do with protecting Biden's standing. He is the Catholic. His religion makes him a potential point of exploitation in the reelection. The issue of use and access to birth control is well settled both privately and under the law. It's just another tactic. Why don't we start asking Newt what type of birth control he and Callista, the "good" Catholic, used when they were having sex during his marriage? It’s a good way to defocus.

• bdop4 on February 10, 2012 11:08 AM:

  mphillips / Danny / FlipYrWhig: excellent observations.

  The Americanist would like us to think that there is this huge monolithic Catholic voting block that will disregard all the other putrid GOP positions and vote for them based singularly on this issue. I think most rational, reasonable Catholics will either agree or disagree, but give proper weight to this issue in determining what is best for this country.

• Anonymous on February 10, 2012 11:14 AM:

  
  @Bertheclock...

  I will find the odonell clip. I usually watch him, but he began the show with a "single payer would have solved all of this" line, and I changed the channel because I can't abide returning there. I did switch back too late for the gore v bush lawyer who I heard was marvelous.

  The struggle for relevance on a changed political terrain I just don't see in matthews, modowd etc., but also in republicans, christian political conservatives (tebow, anyone), to some degree the congressional Black caucus, anti Castro Cubans in Fla...

  Just interesting. And I am not foolish enough to think that change is a linear phenomenon, but this is a moment for which I don't think there is a ready made explanation or script...

• Danny on February 10, 2012 11:16 AM:

  @cavedman

  How did he cave? All women in the U.S. will still get birth control coverage with no co-pays. Only difference is that now they've been reminded of the fact that the Catholic church hierarchy and the Republican party would rather they didn't.

• CurtMinIN on February 10, 2012 11:32 AM:

  The compromise is a win for President Obama. He managed to:

  1)stand on the side of nearly every woman in America by showing strong support for birth control
  2)invite the GOP to overreact and demonstrate once again their medieval views on sexuality
  3)show he can compromise(not cave) while still protecting every woman who wants birth control
  4)stick it to the insurance companies who everyone hates.

  Looks like a win to me.

• Anonymous on February 10, 2012 12:47 PM:

  Worst since Diocletian ?!? Maximinus Daza was emperor after Diocletian, and, according to Gibbon was a more determined enemy of the Church.

• Stetson Kennedy on February 10, 2012 1:13 PM:

  Anyone engaging in this fake uproar need be asked one question - are vasectomies covered under health care plans of Catholic and other religious organizations? If so (and they are), how is that different than providing medical contraception?

  Oh, that's right, the only people using medical contraception are WOMEN! So carry on covering vasectomies and Viagra, while continuing to deny women basic healthcare needs. As a reformed Catholic (it makes for a nice fairy tale), I have to ask, why would any woman remain Catholic?

• LiberalLady on February 10, 2012 1:24 PM:

  On Morning Joe Chris Mathews was all over the map on this issue. He acknowledged that nearly all Catholics in the US use birth control but stated that this was really a first amendment issue..freedom of religion and all that. Claimed that even liberal Catholics were uncomfortable with this action by the Obama White House --no actual evidence to support the claim, of course. Then he went on to say that this was an example of Big Givernment intervention (buying into the Republican meme). As he sputtered on about that he actually asked what will we all say when they come for the bishops and priest and throw them in prison for not following the law. What horse pucky!!!!!

  
  

• SecularAnimist on February 10, 2012 1:35 PM:

  With all due respect, theAmericanist, your sophistry is to be expected -- but egregiously long-winded and self-flattering sophistry is rather obnoxious.

  It's very clear that this is all about the ruthlessly dogmatic, all-male, all-celibate (except for the pedophiles) Catholic hierarchy waging war against contraception.
  

• Doug on February 10, 2012 9:38 PM:

  Well said, SecularAnimist!

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