Well I admit it. I am absolutely baffled by Obiwan-obama.

For the life of me I can not figure out why the decision was made to take on Roman Catholic and other non profit hospitals on the issue of contraception/abortion. Why now? Why on earth now given the fact that you're trying to win the election? What a perfectly insane battle to choose at this time!

Doing so is a lob over the plate to the far right waiting to be knocked out of the park. I cannot believe that The One or Axelrod made this call. I have to believe it was a flunky and that his/her head is now rolling down the White House lawn. It ought to be.

The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church in America is such at the moment that a challenge such as this one is exactly what they long for. One of the most beleguered institutions in the world now has a cause to take on. And let me tell you, the NCCB are having their letters to the faithful read after every mass insisting their flocks vote according to orthodox teaching next fall. That's veiled pretensese for "Vote Obamaboy out!" Heard it myself just this past weekend.

I wonder if the administration is hedging their bets that the majority of RC Catholics don't buy into the teaching on contraception or abortion anymore? or that the majority of RC Catholics are fed up with other RC leadership scandals and have had enough of Big Brother eyeballing them on every move they make? Whatever the stragedy, the administration has grossly underestimated the psche of the RC vote in America.

Cardinal elect Tim Dolan of Manhattan, the official or unofficial voice of the American prelates recently met with Obama privately and came away convinced that RCs had nothing to worry about in regard to their hospitals and insurance covering contraception/abortion. Dolan is now making statements to the effect that the RC Church has been betrayed by Obama. This is Tim Dolan I'm talking about. Perhaps one of THE most reasonable RC leaders within the NCCB or the RC world for that matter. That the administration would isolate him of all bishops is truly profound. Profoundly stupid.

I'm tempted to say that this one move alone may be the butterfly effect that eventually costs Obama an otherwise guaranteed election (Yes, guaranteed. Just look at the circus clown straws the dying on the vine GOP are grasping at to prop up as candidates. You can be as right as you can be but you ain't gonna take the swing with this group of stiffs) .

Anyway, few other institutions in America are as organized or as desperate to shift attention away from internal scandals and take up the banner of persecuted heros than the RC Bishops of America and the "anawim" who now plan to go down fighting with them.

Congrats far right, you were just handed a gimme for free.

of course, it could be the other way around, that the Catholic Church decided to take on the government over something that already applies in most US states and which they are lying about contraception being the same as abortion...

Well, if its a battle with the Catholic Church for the hearts and minds of whom? Maybe Women? I think maybe it coul well work out...
An interesting opinion piece in washington Post from it:

A majority of voters — and an even higher majority of Catholic female voters — support health-plan coverage of contraception with no additional cost. That is because contraception is one of the most common health-care services used by women in the United States. Ninety-eight percent of sexually active women, including Catholic women, will use it at some point in their lives.
Meanwhile, the average cost of contraception comes to $50 per month, or $600 a year, which adds up to $18,000 over the 30 years that the average woman uses contraception. That is a considerable cost, especially when you consider that women’s husbands, fathers and brothers have long enjoyed access to prescription drugs, among them Viagra, with no co-pays whatsoever. A 2010 survey by Hart Research Associates found that more than a third of female
have struggled to afford birth control at some point and, as a result, had used birth control inconsistently....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... ml?hpid=z3

Strikes me that when you get down to the way the law actually affects women, and the fact that the Catholic Church is pushing its discriminatory practices in this issue; and that they haven't done anything in 28 states where this already exists.... Oh, and add in the problems with pervert priests and Church coverups....the Church has a credibility problem...

It might not be a battle Obama shouldn't fight. (note double negative) To begin with, there is enough time and enough facts that the Catholic position will be exposed as dishonest. And he already has the support of liberals...but this may well help him with women independents... And for the hard core conservatives, nothing will help him there...