Here are a few recent items in the news that caught my eye:
The Obama administration is leaking information about a possible Israeli connection to the deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists. I guess Hallmark was all out of thank you cards.
The US Census apparently thinks fathers aren’t real parents, classifying stay at home dads caring for their children as a “child care arrangement.” To some extent, it’s always been this way, because women make it so. How many times have you heard a woman explain that her husband was “babysitting” the kids? But it’s still kind of disconcerting to see the government, that bastion of political correctness and word parsing, take that attitude.
Oh, and two things, as far as the current uproar about Obama’s attack on religion. First, this was premeditated and entirely intentional. The Obama administration considered doing this for an entire year before making the announcement. And they knew full well it was going to be an issue, because they assured Catholic leftists that they wouldn’t be affected; that it was okay to support Congress ramming through Obamacare. And the Catholic left foolishly believed them and did cheerlead for Obamacare back when it counted.
This morning, Obama extended his exemption to universities and hospitals. But his attack on religion isn’t restricted to forcing religious organizations to violate their conscience. That was the immediate goal, and it’s still unclear whether or not he will be successful in forcing churches to comply in the immediate future. But he’s playing a longer game than that. The truth is that he hasn’t actually changed his position or given in. Religious employers are still going to be paying for policies which cover services that are in opposition to church doctrine. So Obama is essentially telling the Church, “I’m giving you an opportunity to save some face and declare a moral victory – that you made me back down.” Obama is establishing the power of the president to dictate the conduct of the church: Sure, you can teach that contraception and abortion and fornication are sinful, but you can’t behave as though they are. ”Compromising” now still leaves him in the position of being able to take away what he has “given.” So if he can’t have his victory now, he is at least assured he will have it later, as the left continues its long march through our institutions.
Second, while we are all understandably in an uproar about this latest usurpation of our rights, Obama is getting yet another pass for his lawlessness. This week, he’s arbitrarily, via diktat, set aside a federal law that the people’s representatives passed. You don’t have to be a big fan of the Bush Administration law No Child Left Behind to see the problem. The president simply does not have the right to arbitrarily rewrite laws which Congress has passed. Nevertheless, that’s what he’s doing. He has excused states from obeying the law, and instead given them his own set of standards to follow.
There’s a pattern here – we stagger from one scandal to the next, and nothing is ever completed or resolved. Sure, we still remember Solyndra, Lightsquared, and Fast and Furious. They’re still getting at least a little mildly critical media coverage. But we’ve largely moved on from -
- Obamacare waivers to politically connected companies and especially to the unions – the same people who took to the streets and even got violent at Town Hall meetings in their support of Obamacare.
- Interior secretary Ken Salazar blatantly lying about what Obama’s own panel said about the safety of offshore drilling in order to support the moratorium. Then there was the permitorium.
- The blantant politicization of the Department of Justice, especially in the voting rights division.
- Using “stimulus” funds to pay off big Democratic donors.
- Declaring the right to kill American citizens overseas without due process. (Hey, remember when the left was all up in arms about Bush’s “warrantless wiretapping”? Good times…)
This list is hardly comprehensive. And he’s never held accountable. Everyone on the left who is doing a victory dance that “their” President is finally getting tough on the wingnuts really ought to consider how much they will enjoy it when a Republican president can make use of all the precedents Obama is creating.
