Fox, The Cable News Leader


What does it take to get a Fox News host disciplined?

We may soon find out.     Alex Seitz-Wald of CAP explains

Fox News host Eric Bolling — who is fond of discussing President Obama’s penchant for “chugging 40's” and inviting “hoodlum(s) in hizzouse” and the “crib” — told Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) this morning that she should “step away from the crack pipe.” While discussing Waters strong rhetoric about bankers and the GOP leadership, Bolling, without any apparent relevancy aside from the fact they are both African-American women, offered some friendly advice: “Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe.”

After an amused reaction from Bolling's co-hosts (video, from Media Matters, below), Fox & Friends went to commercial break. Once the program returned, Bolling defended himself, saying "I was only kidding."     There was no apology or admission of wronging, no statement of regret that he had made the comment, only Bolling justifying his remark on the basis that it was (allegedly) a joke.    

Over the past 15 or 20 years, there has been a drive to get state penalties for possession of crack cocaine in line with those of powdered cocaine, which is penalized less severely.   Blacks traditionally have disproportionately used crack while whites have favored the powdered variety of cocaine.      A reference to use of a "crack pipe" in the context of Whitney Houston and Representative Waters is  a brazen knock against blacks.

The snide remark is all the more egregious because it is not yet known what part, if any, street drugs played in the recent death of the revered performer.       The Daily Mail of the U.K. reports    

Whitney’s death certificate has failed to determine the cause of death listing ‘pending investigation’ as the manner of death and ‘deferred’ is written for the immediate cause. 

While it is known that the singer drank alcohol and had taken prescription drugs before her death it is still not clear what the exact cause is - and it has been reported it will be hard to get a clear picture of exactly what she was taking.

According to The LA Times: 'The Los Angeles County coroner's office said Wednesday investigators have asked  'a number' of doctors to provide them with Houston's medical information.

L.A. County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Opferman told the paper: 'Celebrities often get their prescription drugs from doctors who are more than willing to give them what they want and sometimes using members of their entourage.'

So a Fox news personality- with a history of questionable racial comments- assumes that a famous black singer died because of crack use and draws a parallel to a black congresswoman, whom he jokingly (as he claims) refers to as a cocaine user.      Meanwhile, no association has been made by authorities between Houston's death and illegal drug use, with determination of cause of death pending.     That would make Bolling's remark not only racially provocative and insensitive, but racially biased.       And it precludes consideration of the impact of prescription drug use, thereby prematurely letting the drug companies off the hook.      That would be a conservative two-fer:  bias against minorities and shilling for a corporate power, the pharmaceutical industry.      Hopefully, that is two much even for GOP TV.

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Pregnancy, Yes; Kitchen Duty, Optional


Yesterday, complaining about Democrats supporting a woman's right to contraception, Rush Limbaugh told a caller "You got close when you equated contraception with abortion.  It's women's rights.  It is a way to set up the notion that Republicans are Neanderthals and don't like women and oppose women's rights."

Not all Republicans are Neanderthals.       And not all Republicans oppose women's rights.    But it is a malady inflicting an increasing number of GOP politicians.

"Personhood" legislation, which would define a fetus as a person and thereby prohibit hormonal birth control, is moving through the Virginia legislature.    In October, as Mother Jones' Nick Baumann reminds us, congressional Republicans unsuccessfully had promoted legislation which would have resulted in defining legal personhood as when a sperm meets an egg, which might have prohibited hormonal birth control or barrier devices that prevent zygotes from implanting in the uterine wall.     Recently, GOP heartthrob Marco Rubio introduced the  Establishment of Religion Act Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would allow any employer to refuse to provide birth control if he or she cited a religious reason.     Similar legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives and in the Missouri legislature.

Last night, Rachel Maddow (transcript here) commented      

In Virginia, the Republicans backing the personhood measure in that state had a chance to take the birth control argument off the table entirely.    A Democratic Delegate Vivian Watts tried to attach an amendment to the Virginia bill that would declare nothing in that bill could be construed to outlaw any form of legal contraception. Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates voted no on that by a huge margin. The vote was 64 to 34 against taking birth control out of the equation.  

So, in Virginia, Republicans had a wide open opportunity to say this personhood thing, this bill is only about banning abortion, we do not want to ban birth control.

They had the opportunity to say that, and they rejected it, hugely.

Virginia Republicans have watched this personhood measure go down over and over again across the country in large part because it`s seen as a way to ban birth control. But they`re not contesting that idea. Ban birth control, sure, sounds like a plan.  That is what passed the Virginia House of Delegates today, the anti- abortion, anti-birth control personhood bill, and now it`s headed over to  the Virginia senate. In recent years, the senate in Virginia has been kind of the brakes for this sort of legislation in the commonwealth of Virginia.  The Senate was under Democratic control had been a cooling off chamber for Virginia conservatives` really intrusive big government proposals on social issues like this.

But now, Republicans are in control of the state senate and Virginia politics watchers say this personhood bill has a pretty good chance in the senate. If it passes the house and passes the senate, Virginia`s uber conservative governor, Bob McDonnell, will say nothing more than that he plans to take a look at it if it reaches his desk.

But wait, there`s more! Not only are Republicans of Virginia moving to pass a bill that could ban birth control, that they explicitly acknowledge could ban birth control -- Virginia Republicans have are already passed in both chambers a bill that would have the state government force Virginia women into having medically unnecessary, unwanted vaginal ultrasounds. That is a physical penetration of the body, ultrasound, by state order, without your consent. That would be forced on you as a condition of your being allowed to have an abortion in the state of Virginia.

The Virginia legislature no doubt has a fan in the Repub flavor of the month, Rick Santorum, who in early January informed ABC's Jake Tapper that he disapproves of the Supreme Court decision(s) prohibiting states from outlawing contraception because

The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.That is the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court, they are creating rights, and they should be left up to the people to decide.

In October, Santorum had told a conservative blogger that contraception is

not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that’s not for purposes of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can’t you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure. And that’s certainly a part of it—and it’s an important part of it, don’t get me wrong—but there’s a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.

And while the states are precluded from banning artificial birth control, a President Santorum would not be so reticent.    "One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before," Santorum told the interviewer, "is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, 'Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.'

Ranting and raving, Limbaugh today maintained

I guarantee you right now, the whole point of this contraception stuff started last week is to make sure that if Santorum get this Republican nomination that's what he's going to be known for and of course the theme of that is Santorum hates women, Republicans hate women, Republicans have no respect for women.  Republicans want women in the kitchen constantly pregnant, blah, blah, whatever it is. 

"Blah, Blah, whatever it is" is one of the most intelligent arguments Rush Limbaugh has made in a long time.     Meanwhile, Rick Santorum and most Republicans probably don't hate women; they may even love women.      As for the rest of Limbaugh's comment, it's a fairly accurate synopsis of the contemporary  Republican cultural agenda.



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A Few Loopholes



It wasn't exactly a sell-out, but it was no triumph for consumers or homeowners, either.

Though we await details of the recent agreement among the Justice Department, 49 state Attorneys General (Oklahoma cut its own bank-friendly deal), and five huge banks, we do know that the total amounts to $25 billion.     Apparently, "some $17 billion of that would go toward writing down mortgage principal for an estimated 850,000 troubled borrowers, $3 billion could go toward restitution payments of $1,500-2,000 each to borrowers who lost their homes to foreclosure, and the rest could go to state funds for foreclosure relief."      

The Administration-friendly Center for American Progress reports "the deal protects banks from state and federal lawsuits pertaining to some foreclosure fraud abuses, including robo-signing," the lawsuit lodged by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for mortgage fraud, and the right of individual homeowners to sue.

Within hours of announcement of the settlement, several housing experts expressed misgivings about the settlement, including the paltry sums which will actually go to homeowners who are underwater.    Dean Baker concluded

It would have been useful if the attorneys general had pushed for a settlement that gave enforceable rights to homeowners facing foreclosure. For example, if they had required servicers to give every foreclosed homeowner the right to stay in their home paying the market rent for five years following a foreclosure, millions of homeowners would have immediately been given housing security they currently lack. And, they could enforce this one themselves rather than relying on the goodwill of the bank or government overseers.

One estimate has it that financial institutions, having held off on foreclosures during the negotiations, are likely to initiate approximately 1 million foreclosures this year and according to a California-based insurance provider, "The homes in the foreclosure pipeline are four times the REO [current bank-
owned properties], and yesterday's settlement is going to accelerate the seizure process. They have a total green light to seize those homes that are in the foreclosure process."

And now, another problem.     On February 9 we learned

Wisconsin will use a chunk of its $140 million share of a national settlement over foreclosure and mortgage-servicing abuses to help the state budget rather than assist troubled homeowners, Gov. Scott Walker and state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Thursday.

Walker and Van Hollen said the majority of the settlement amount earmarked to Wisconsin under a $25 billion proposed nationwide agreement announced Thursday still would go to aid consumers in Milwaukee and other communities struggling with the specter of home foreclosure.

But of a $31.6 million payment coming directly to the state government, most of that money - $25.6 million - will go to help close a budget shortfall revealed in newly released state projections. Van Hollen, whose office said he has the legal authority over the money, made the decision in consultation with Walker.

It's hard to understand why the Administration didn't see this  coming.    Wait- they did:    

Even before state attorneys general put the final touches on a $25 billion settlement with five major banks over improper mortgage practices on Thursday (February 9), Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced that he wanted to use some of his state’s proceeds for an unexpected purpose: to help fund higher education.    

Colleges and universities in Missouri have gone through several rounds of painful budget cuts in recent years, and Nixon, a Democrat, proposed using $40 million from the state’s share of the settlement to help offset the 12.5 percent cut to higher education that he initially proposed in his budget this year, The Kansas City Star reported. Republicans who control the state legislature expressed support for the plan, with the chair of a key budget committee saying he was “glad the governor is finally starting to listen to legislators and the people of this state who make education a priority.”

But while Nixon and Missouri lawmakers may agree on the need to put mortgage settlement dollars into higher education, the decision actually belongs to Attorney General Chris Koster, who signed onto the agreement with the banks and who, under the terms of the deal, has significant leeway to determine how Missouri’s share of the money will be spent. Koster, a Democrat, told reporters on Thursday that he agrees with the governor’s call for more higher education funding and will transfer the $40 million Nixon has requested into the general fund, citing the“severe budget shortages” the state faces.

Missouri has other means for funding education, including suspending tax credits, which the state hands out "like legislative candy along a parade route."      Instead, homeowners are shortchanged because money taken out of the fund would have been used, as David Dayen notes, for legal aid for foreclosure victims or anti-blight programs to improve neighborhoods with vacant properties.     T

The Justice Department needs to step in, lest the Wisconsin/Missouri model be repeated throughout the nation and undermine the integrity of a settlement intended to help stabilize the housing market.



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From Her Perspective:  20/20 Vision


Joan Walsh is a national treasure (though I reserve the right to criticize her in the future).     In her most recent post at Salon, where she is editor-in-chief, Walsh reminds us that the intransigence recently on display by the American Church did not proceed from individuals across the land and not uniformly from Catholic institutions, but from the Conference of Catholic Bishops.      She notes

solid majorities of Catholic voters supported Obama’s contraception regulations applying to large Catholic institutions, like hospitals, charities and universities, that employ non-Catholics. I loved the fact that students at Catholic universities held a press conference Thursday to support the president, and that organizations like Catholic Democrats and Catholics for Choice were active and vocal in standing up to their own bishops.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of Roman Catholic pundits, as demonstrated even today on Meet The Press as Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and liberal columnist E.J. Dionne celebrated tribalism:

 MS. NOONAN: ...as Catholics it was so great for three weeks that we all got along. We were all in agreement.
MR. DIONNE: Yeah.
MS. NOONAN: I mean, this is a church that...
MR. GREGORY: Yeah, exactly.
MR. DIONNE: Persistent Obama united Catholics.
MS. NOONAN: Yeah.    

Imagine if these great minds had agreed on another topic, one of a racial nature, and Noonan or Dionne had remarked "as whites it was so great for three weeks that we all got along.     We were all in agreement."      Yet, here they put aside principle to respond to a political issue on the basis of religion, and they got a warm, fuzzy feeling.         Wrestling with theirs and similar reactions, Walsh writes

Why did we spend 10 days listening to prominent Catholics, including even some liberals and Democrats, insist that the White House had overreached and trampled on “religious freedom” – in this case, the “freedom” of the Catholic hierarchy to impose rules that even most Catholics don’t live by? The great E.J. Dionne led the charge, but Catholic Democrats like Sens. John Kerry and Bob Case and Virginia’s Tim Kaine joined in, and occasionally, liberal TV hosts like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris Matthews seemed inclined to depict the controversy as being about the church’s right not to violate its own values. Vice President Joe Biden was said to be the leading voice within the administration warning Obama away from the issue.

“This has struck a tribal nerve in Catholicism,” conservative Catholic scholar George Weigel said to Chuck Todd on “The Daily Rundown” last Monday. “The Catholic Church has been beaten up over the last 10 or 11 years and I think Catholics are tired of the government and others beating up on the church.” His liberal co-religionist on the panel, E.J. Dionne, agreed. I found that fascinating, especially because most of us consider tribalism a bad thing in a multi-ethnic democracy.


Still, while I didn’t share that reaction, I recognized it. It amazes me sometimes, the extent to which Catholics still see themselves – ourselves — as outsiders. There’s a vestigial impulse to circle the wagons and protect our right to practice our persecuted religion (even if it’s no longer persecuted, and many of us don’t practice very much of it anymore).

Left unstated, however, is consideration of the reasons the Church "has been beaten up over the last 10 or 11 years."      I know what you're thinking- it was primarily over the child sex abuse scandal.

It was.       As a non-Catholic, I was pleased (though not especially surprised) that through it all, the vast majority of Catholics joined the chorus of Americans denouncing the Church for its apparent tolerance of pedophilia among many priests and their superiors.      Their sense of revulsion may even have been greater than among non-Catholics because of the concern they might be (or perhaps were) unfairly tainted by the sins of others.     Still, many Roman Catholics no doubt believed that their non-Catholic neighbors were using the scandal as an excuse to attack a church they were not fond of for other reasons.     But they dared not criticize those neighbors, for to do so might have appeared in some way to be condoning those loathsome acts.      Political correctness pops up in so many places.

From the perspective of an Irish-American Roman Catholic raised in a working-class family but who concedes that she herself is not working-class (an admission many successful individuals are loathe to make), Walsh suggests

There may be an element of remorse involved when liberal Catholics defend their faith, especially among those who defy the church (rightly, in my opinion) on its most blinkered teachings in the realm of women’s rights, gay rights and sexuality. For some it may be guilt: OK, I might not listen to the bishops, but I think we ought to demand that they’re respected in the public sphere.

Guilt is a powerful emotion, and one reason I have been uneasy about the political significance recently attached by supporters of reproductive freedom to statistics showing an overwhelming majority of Catholic women having used artificial birth control.      While the numbers show how widespread use is and how out of touch their church is, many Roman Catholics might nonetheless have been defensive about criticism of their church's hierarchy in the recent controversy.     And there can be no assumption that even a Catholic woman who has used contraceptives would be offended at an attempt to prevent other women from using them.      Human beings often believe authorities or experts are talking about thee, not me.

Unlike the likes of Noonan or Melinda Henneberger, Walsh is a Roman Catholic whose sense of kinship with individuals with whom she shares a cultural identity does not smack of condescension.      Recognizing "zealous right-wing Catholics are in the minority, even if blowhards like Bill Donohue sometimes make the most noise," she notes "the craziness of the right-wing Catholic alliance with conservative evangelicals became particularly obvious to me. They’ve locked arms with some of the very forces that once persecuted their ancestors – some of whom still despise Catholicism to this day."      The opportunism of some evangelical Protestants and their GOP allies has been shameless.

Ultimately (or, as politicians like to say, "at the end of the day"), Joan Walsh has a singular understanding that one institution, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks for itself, has been wrong, and has wronged its constituents, who deserve better.

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The Evil That Women Do


The Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would not extend to church-related institutions an exemption from providing employees preventive care without co-pay or deductible.      A hue and cry followed, with critics of the Administration's policy complaining that it interfered with religious institutions setting policy consistent with their doctrine.         The White House fashioned a compromise in which costs would be borne by the insurance company rather than the (religiously affiliated) employer.           Women would get the coverage they need and there would be no infringement on religious liberty or the right of such employers to discriminate based on their deeply-held religious convictions.

A win-win with even insurance companies, cognizant that prevention of unwanted pregnancy reduces mid-term and long-term health care costs, accepting of the modification.

Except that, as The Hill reports

Obama's compromise, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said Friday, "continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions..."

As reasonable as the new policy is, perhaps the USCCB's opposition should not have come as a surprise.    Prior to the compromise of the original compromise, Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the Conference, had asserted that even private, thoroughly secular employers such as Taco Bell should be exempt from providing preventive care.       And now that the President has determined that institutions associated with a religion but who employee individuals of all faiths to service individuals of all faiths for a secular purpose will not have to comply with the mandate, the Bishops have responded with a resounding "no."

Appearing (video below) today on MSNBC's impressive UP with Chris Hayes, Reverend William Dailey of Notre Dame Law School referred  to birth control services as "gravely immoral and unjust."     He so characterized such services twice, though he did not indicate whether he believes the majority of Roman Catholic women of childbearing age, who use birth control at about the same rate as other individuals, are gravely immoral.

Beginning at approximately 7:33, Hayes suggested to Father Dailey that the issue is analogous to that of Bob Jones University, which once argued that "government was entering into their private, doctrinal disputes when it told them they had to integrate."      Dailey responded that the current conflict is "not tantamount to racism."

No, it is not tantamount to racism because race is not involved.      But as long as Father Dailey invoked an "ism," it is fair game to note that the Church's position is fairly brazen sexism.      Without the name calling, Salon contributor Rebecca Traister responded

These are conversations about economic equality, about social equality.       That when you talk about circumscribing a woman's ability to control her reproduction- whether it is through birth control or to my mind through abortion- you are talking about circumscribing her ability to earn equally, to control her career, to control the size of her family and how she can control and fed it, or whether she has a family, you are talking about circumscribing her ability to exist as an equal citizen within this nation.

Equal rights under the law were achieved for minorities when a combination of citizen action, judicial intervention, and legislative action prevailed against rules and regulations maintained by a racially biased- some, like Father Dailey, would employ the term "racist"- power structure.         In much the same way have many rights of women, including the use of contraception, been achieved.    

As a result of two rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), the right of women and men to use birth control was established. President Obama has addressed the initial objection of the Church, that its religious freedom was being eroded.    The response:   it's still not enough.      The goalposts have been moved.    The real objective of the religious right- whether among Roman Catholic prelates, Protestant evangelicals, or congressional opportunists- is becoming increasingly clear.

   

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The People Rick Santorum Believes God Forgot



"Populist" Rick Santorum is at it again.     First, he compared buying drugs for a child with a rare genetic disorder to buying an iPad.      Then, on Tuesday night, the triumphant working-class hero claimed

Look what happens when the government gives you rights. When the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights, the government can take them away. When government gives you rights, the government can tell you how to exercise those rights.

The following night, featuring a comparison of health care to execution by guillotine in France, the former senator from Pennsylvania/Virginia remarked

They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it.

Santorum is all for big government when it's in your bedroom, preventing you from having sex with someone of your gender or utilizing contraceptives; in the doctor's office, where it must prevent a physician from terminating a pregnancy; in a consumer's pocketbook, where it must act to keep the prices of prescription drugs artificially high; in the appropriations process, where it can subsidize an energy company if it's a major donor; or in the Pentagon, which must make plans to bomb Iran.

Still, Santorum's opposition to government intervention on behalf of the consumer or the individual is akin to libertarianism, which David Atkins notes

run(s) counter to human nature for the same reason: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The people with the money and guns will always abuse the people who don't have the money and guns, unless there are multiple levels of checks, balances, and legal and economic protections to ensure the existence of a middle-class tax base with a stake in maintaining a stable society. The modern welfare state didn't arise by accident or conspiracy: it evolved as a means of avoiding the failures of other models.

Libertarianism is a naive philosophy, as is Santorum's ideas of the origin of rights, at least at first appearance.        He seems to believe that most, if not all, rights emanate from God, a startling notion given the prevalence of authoritarianism across the globe.        According to the Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit, an independent unit within the Economist Group, there are 51 authoritarian regimes in the world:

North Korea
Chad
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Myanmar
Central African Republic
Saudi Arabia
Guinea-Bissau
Libya
Guinea
Laos
Syria
Equatorial Guinea
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Eritrea
Djibouti
Togo
Tajikistan
Vietnam
Zimbabwe
United Arab Emirates
Sudan
Iran
Qatar
Republic of the Congo
Yemen
Tunisia
Oman
Gabon
Afghanistan
Swaziland
People’s Republic of China
Azerbaijan
Côte d’Ivoire
Algeria
Belarus
Angola
Bahrain
Kuwait
Niger
Kazakhstan
Cameron
Cuba
Nigeria
Comoros
Burkina Faso
Rwanda
Morocco
Egypt
Mauritania
Jordan

One can reasonably ask Senator Santorum why he believes that the Lord has blessed the people of approximately 25 nations with a "full democracy," of 53 nations with a "flawed democracy," and 37 nations with a "hybrid regime," and left behind well over a billion individuals to suffer oppression.      

Santorum might argue that the Almighty blesses only Christians or Christian nations (possibly Jews, also) but that runs counter to the experience of, at least, Swaziland, in which the population is 71%-90% Christian.      

It's a romantic notion, that rights come from God while government contributes nothing but darkness and evil.     But if Santorum is a serious candidate for President of the United States of America, someone ought to ask him why he believes God favors some nations, and some groups of people, over others.        That might tell us more than we already know about Rick Santorum, and it probably wouldn't be pretty.

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Compromise, No Compromise



No good deed goes unpunished.

And so it goes yet again with the Obama administration:     propose a policy, provoke bitter opposition, offer to compromise, provoke bitter opposition.

This time it's not from congressional Republicans and presidential candidates- themselves doing their best to stir up religious division- but the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.      

Last August, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim rule requiring most new health insurance plans to cover preventive services, including contraceptive care, without a co-pay or deductible, under terms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.      Exempted were religious employers.    Clarifying the rule on January 29, the Department announced that it would maintain a strict definition of religous employers, thereby requiring Roman Catholic-related institutions (primarily colleges and hospitals) to cover contraceptive use, though it gave them a year's grace in the implementation date.    

A few of the Administration's critics reacted irrationally.     That would include liberal Democrat Melinda Henneberger, a Catholic who, arguing that the decision would harm the incumbent's re-election prospects, wrote "President Romney won't be forcing nuns to dole out free diaphragms in violation of their religious freedom."      But the edict does not unconstitutionally infringe on the first amendment, given that freedom to worship is not affected and no religion is being treated differently than another; and nuns wouldn't be forced to hand out free birth control, unless the religiously-affiliated employer prefers to offer contraception itself, rather than have the patient's medical practitioner do so.

Still, the Administration, as it usually does when faced with opposition to the right, signaled a willingness to compromise.        White House Press Secretary David Axelrod said on Tuesday "We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventative care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions."     Later that day, presidential Press Secretary Jay Carney responded to a question from ABC News' Jake Tapper by commenting "I'm not going to negotiate all the different possibilities of how this rule could be implemented in a way that might allay some of those concerns.    That's what the transition period is for."      The next day, he similarly remarked "The discussion, and it's an important one, but the discussion is how can we, in implementing this policy, try to allay some of the concerns that have been expressed?"

Offered an olive branch, Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, responded 

The White House is "all talk, no action" on moving toward compromise (stated Picarello).      "There has been a lot of talk in the last couple days about compromise, but it sounds to us like a way to turn down the heat, to placate people without doing anything in particular.    We're not going to do anything until this is fixed."

That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for "good Catholic business people who can't in good conscience cooperate with this."

"If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I'd be covered by the mandate," Picarello said. 

Give an inch and- unless it's merely a negotiating tactic- the Catholic Bishops expect to take a mile.      For those of us taken in by the idea that opposition has been rooted in church doctrine, learning that Taco Bell also shouldn't be subject to the requirement is revelatory.     Religious freedom appears to have been less motivation than red herring.     Jodi Jacobson remarks

Well before the issue of the exemptions came up, the Bishops were fighting inclusion of contraception per se in the definition of preventive care. They did not want contraception to be included as part of the primary preventive care package of insurance coverage for anyone under any employer. So this is about their attempt to control public health a la Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kenya and other countries where they have succeeded in severely diminishing women's access to care across the board.

Split (by gender) over the policy, the Administration has allowed itself to be put on the defensive by never having made an affirmative case for contraception.     Jacobson maintains that the White House should have noted that artificial birth control is used at one time or another by almost every sexually active American woman and that its use is normal (a related, but slightly different, point).        We also should have been reminded that, as explained by the Women's Law Project

contraceptives benefit women’s health in many ways, including by preventing unintended pregnancies, treating certain health conditions such as polycystic ovarian syndrome, and, in the case of male or female condoms, reducing the risk of sexually transmitted infections.  Despite these benefits for women’s health, contraceptives are expensive, and many require an exam and prescription from a health care provider.  At the present time, contraceptives may be prohibitively expensive for many women, even for those with insurance plans because of high co-pays and deductibles. 

Instead, the White House has relied on its modus operandi, trying to split the difference, placate its enemies, and compromise what presumably are its principles.      It may be doing a good deed, but the punishment is visited upon women and their partners.



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