I told you all two years ago

[fpb]

As for President Obama:
1) he has broken his own promise on Don't Ask Don't Tell, something to which few reasonable people would have seen an objection. (That at least one right-wing columnist broke Godwin's Law in trying to find an argument against accepting homosexual soldiers just shows how poor the arguments for this really are.)
2) He has broken his promise on torture and even let into his administration a couple of people whose hands are dirty in the matter, such as Robert Gates.
3) He is wrecking his own proposals for health reform rather than give up a sneaky and unprincipled attempt to break the consensus on abortion (no federal monies for), and he is lying about it.
4) He is guilty of deliberately stirring up trouble against Israel, with the miserable Quartet all too happy to follow his lead.
5) He has ignored both the hideous threat of an Iranian atom bomb and, more disgracefully, the desperate struggle of the Iranian people against a bloodthirsty and disastrous tyranny. He has repeatedly spoken as though the mullah's government were the legitimate leadership of that unhappy country.

Oh, and strictly for Catholics:
6) According to Life Site News International, he has deliberately egged on Catholic Health Association, and possibly the Leadership Conference of Religious Women (although that lot don't need much egging) to revolt against the Bishops. I quote: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs revealed to reporters today that President Barack Obama actively promoted the Catholic Health Association's public break with the American Catholic bishops to support his health care legislation.
Gibbs also suggested that the CHA and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' (LCWR) break with the U.S. Bishops has provided legitimate political cover for pro-life Democrats to switch their votes from "no" to "yes."
(...)
Gibbs said that the president had been engaged on the issue, and a reporter asked if he had reached out personally to the groups.
"The President met earlier this week with Sr. Keehan of the CHA," said Gibbs, saying the meeting took place in the Roosevelt Room, but that he "did not get a detailed run-down of the pitch that [Obama] made."
"I do know that he was effusive about her support and her as a person for making the courageous statements that she has," he said.
Well, at least he was not shameless enough to tell his own spokesman what he had done with or offered to this rebel nun.
During the Paris negotiations of 1782-3, the reigning Pope offered Franklin and Adams that the USA government could have a veto over the nomination of Catholic bishops (something that many European governments had at the time). In keeping with their principles, the Founders - few of whom had any sympathy for the Catholic Church as such - nonetheless refused this offer and allowed the Church to organize itself in the new nation as it saw fit. Since then, I know of no President who has ever, for any reason whatever, thought to meddle in the Church's internal affairs and organization.

Hope? Change? Change, all right; hope - that he does not get re-elected.

Comments

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

3) He is wrecking his own proposals for health reform rather than give up a sneaky and unprincipled attempt to break the consensus on abortion (no federal monies for), and he is lying about it.

What the crap

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Fact. Without the Stupak amendment issue, he would have had a majority for months and he would not have had to make use of the most naked corruption in the cases of Nelson and Landrieu.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Are you saying without the Stupak amendment that federal money would have gone to cover abortions because that's not true

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

Here's what I keep asking: if it's NOT true, THEN WHY NOT JUST LET THE STUPAK AMENDMENT LANGUAGE IN?

Speaking as someone who WANTS universal health care, this is making me crazy.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers. Especially since what the papers are saying is nothing more than a repeat of the same lies. If the Stupak Amendment did not matter, there would be no reason to mobilize the whole armoury of political war to stop it at all costs. And, incidentally, to break with 230 years of constitutional precedent and actually try to split the Catholic Church. (I have just edited in a paragraph about that.)

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

There are also small matters like the President's making backroom deals to undermine the very same Public Option that he was promoting in public.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I originally read that as "bathroom" deals, ha.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Given Eric Massa's account of his little encounter with Rahm Emmanuel, you might be more right than you know.

(Sorry, I know I wanted to stop for the day, but I just could not resist this particular one!)

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

Get Religion's article about the LCWR thing is excellent.

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

I figured as much. The general media are morons, slaves to their political masters.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The main problem is not so much who these people are. The Leadership Conference, in particular, is a notorious joke among committed and informed Catholics - a bunch of self-regarding, elderly, power-dressed nuns, looking like nothing so much as the ladies of a country club with a sprinkling of corporate CEOs. What is grave and deliberate is the President's attempt (joyfully taken up by the usual suspects - http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2010/03/20/behar-carlson-suggest-catholic-bishops-are-without-conscience-behar-s) to use this kind of smoke and mirrors to deceive the Catholic electorate - much of which is still Democrat, not just because of hereditary commitment, but because they genuinely support the public option and an interventist policy - into believing that there is a "real", morally authoritative Catholic Church that is not really represented by the Bishops. This amount to fostering schism for political rreasons, and breaks an age-old tradition of political non-interference in Church affairs.

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

Some people, like me, believe in freedom of religion. Others believe in freedom from religion and will do whatever they can to undermine and/or subvert religion at any opportunity to suit their ends.

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

The longer this drags on... the worse and worse it gets. It should theoretically, be over(-ish) Sunday when the Democrats vote it deemed or passed or whatever in the House.

I voted for Obama last time around, and in some ways I'm getting what I asked for. That said, I won't be voting for him again. His handling of so many affairs has demonstrated that he really wasn't the man for the job in the first place and that he and his administration are in no appreciable way different from previous administrations.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I can say that like you, I never had any illusions at all on hope 'n change Barack - but that ain't much comfort, is it?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Curiously enough, at the start I disliked his supporters a lot more than I did him. He struck me as a good and interesting candidate, although I made it clear that if I were American I'd have voted McCain. What I hated was the mean-minded spirit of triumphalism, the gambler obsession of betting on "hope", the real contempt for opponents and the "whatever can go wrong?" self-blinding - the implication that everything must work out just right just because a nice person had replaced that nasty Mr.Bush. I was actually banned and deleted from tree_and_leaf for pointing out the similarities with 1997 and a certain Mr.Blair - not, one would think, the most offensive thing I had ever said. The Obama supporters not only were glad, they were vindictive and out to squash opposition; and the fact that it was tree_and_leaf, of all people, who showed that spirit to such an extent, really showed just how far the poison had spread. tree_and_leaf likes to cultivate a courteus and tolerant image, but that autumn day, she was just as brutal as all the others.

So, yes, believe it or not, I felt Obama himself was not as bad as that. So, yes, he has actually been a bit of a disappointment, in the sense that all my worst fears rather than my hopes have come true. (As I told the wonderful ashesofautumn, who is Jewish, I hoped all my fears about Israel would prove wrong. Well, guess what?) But the thing is that the worst of what has been happening is not just bad morality but incompetent politics. The saga of the health reform is the most atrociously mismanaged political campaign I have ever seen, with Obama losing a certain victory mainly because he would insist on a stupid little pro-abortion bit and lie about it. During the elections, he had shown an almost preternatural ability to split possibly dangerous combinations and defang potential enemies; in the matter of the health reform, he has made mistakes that a child would avoid. Is there a politician in the house?

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I knew from the start he was bad, bad, bad for Israel. You don't cultivate someone like Samantha Power and spend time in Rev. Wright's church - or, for that mater, go vote-hunting in the Palestinian fraternities of Dearborn - without buying into these people's noxious tiers-mondisme. Obama made it clear in his memoirs that Europe was alien to him. When you think about it, it is a negation of everything the Founding Fathers stood for - and it makes a mockery of the hope 'n change thing, because it negates America's positivity.

His incompetence was to be expected, but it's the only saving, er, grace of his benighted administration - if he actually manages to fail passing Obamacare tomorrow with two chambres bleu horizon, it will be a blessing. Of sorts.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Uh, how did he break a promise on DADT? He's moving on it, slowly. It's not really up to him; Congress has to change the law, all he can do is try to convince them to vote for it. Which given Republicans and conservative Democrats is a tall order.

[panobjecticon.livejournal.com]

2, you mean: he's not closed closed guantanamo or come up with a satisfactory answer to the problem?

3, i rarely comment on us or anywhere else's domestic stuff - not having a vote there and so on. but surely, given the unbelievable opposition to it, what has been done is a step in the right direction - even if it will take some time to come into effect and no need to get into the obvious racial inequalities there either? it absolutely amazes me that there's 40 million americans who do not have access to healthcare, and yet you have a country that is prepared to take military action on humanitarian grounds (in the balkans)! as regards the abortion issue, well i suppose if it's sufficiently regulated in the private sector, that's probably ok as it avoids the backstreet whisky and knitting needles procedures of old, but what about people who are not in a position to pay for it? just to clarify a woman's choice of what to do with her own body far outweighs moral indignation or ancient scriptural statement, however difficult the idea may be, and besides regulation is in fact a legal acceptance.

5, an iranian atom bomb isn't a hideous threat, the danger lies in the materials falling into the wrong hands but i don't think it's being ignored. as to the rest, tbh it appears that iran, in many people's eyes, is clearly the wrong type of democracy, like hamas. doesn't mean they're particularly pleasant though...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

An Iranian atom bomb is not a hideous threat to the USA. It is, however, a hideous threat to all the USA allies which are within reach of Iranian missiles, which includes Israel, Turkey, and a large part of south-eastern Europe. Why do you think that the Premier of Turkey has chosen this time to go smarming up to the Iranian leadership, whom he does not even respect as "proper" Muslims? Because he can see that there is no longer any reliable support from Washington.

[panobjecticon.livejournal.com]

oh please! relatively acceptable intermediary.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

By torture, I meant torture. I meant waterboarding, sleep deprivation and the other "enhanced interrogation techniques"; those who sanctioned them and those who used them, but above all those who sanctioned them. Obama had promised that these things would be dealt with. How he intended to deal with them became clear when he kept the Secretay of State for Defence who had been directly responsible for the treatment of prisoners.

[panobjecticon.livejournal.com]

sorry, i thought you were on about people being held without status or charge for years on end, i don't this as an issue otherwise.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The unbelievable opposition to health reform was largely caused by the way Obama, Reid and Pelosi chose to go about it, especially their shameless lies and shenanigans about federal funding of abortion. That alone cost them dozens of votes and any remote chance of bipartisanship. What is more, it has made it virtually certain that there will be a determined effort at repeal.

[panobjecticon.livejournal.com]

politicians politicking and lobbyists lobbying, apparently, stirs up ire to cause the members to vote against? i don't think so. there's a history of objection to healthcare for several former presidents and a real individual centered cultural problem at play in the wider society, in addition to massively vested corporate interests. i honestly doubt that abortion is *that big* an issue. more likely fear of not being re-elected because ensuring that people are unlikely to die as a result of simple, treatable ailments is big government, eurozone socialism at it's very worst, inefficient and costly - ignoring possible wider benefits.

[panobjecticon.livejournal.com]

you've probably seen this already: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8586492.stm

'Some supporters of the bill had received threats and abusive messages, prompting them to call police and the FBI.
Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said more than 10 Democratic politicians had reported incidents since Sunday's vote, some of which he described as "very serious".'