But the Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein

Well, maybe not this guy.

Or these people.

At least 50 killed in attack on Baghdad mosque; U.S. Envoy warns of sectarianism

Update: Death toll up to 74.

And while we're on the subject of Iraq, here's what I wanna know. What I wanna know is, if war supporters insist that the networks, newspapers and cable stations need to report "positive" news out of Iraq, why don't they call for deconstructing the Green Zone? That would be a sign of progress, right?

Next time you hear a war supporter or war booster complaining on cable TV about the coverage of the war ask them when we can expect the Green Zone to be torn down.

Update II: This latest bombing leaves the freepers at Slave Republic with mixed emotions. Let's read a few: (note: estimated translations in brackets)

I don't mind in the least there [their] blowing theirselves [themselves] up but really hate it that they take innoncents [innocents] along with themselves...

This to me is like the eastern front in WW2. The Nazis and the Communists were killing each other off. Muslims killing muslims. Let them fight...

Someone PLEASE turn the USMC loose on the insurgents!...

Who loves to talk smack about using suicide terrorism as a primary weapon of war? Iran's leadership, that's who. One more reason they have to go...

I don't get it. Islam is the religion of piece [peace] and love. They, in their way of thinking is that the faith of Mohamed is perfect. So why is life so cheap to them?...

If the Sunni or any other "trouble maker" REALLY wanted to ignite an all out "Civil War" in Iraq, wouldn't they have murdered the #1 leader of the Shi'ite militants - fat Sadr? So long as fat Sadr lives, the killing is simply the area lunatics acting out...

Ah, yes, this from the group that has a special "pro-life" section on its website.

What's Happened to Judge Roy Moore?

I thought he'd be a shoo-in down in Alabama, challenging a Republican governor who tried to raise taxes. Then he could run for Prez in 2008 or 2012 promising to bust down the wall of separation between church and state. I figured everyone down there loved him. And they did, apparently at first.

But he's dropped in the polls, big-time.

Feb 2006 Moore 28% Riley 56%

Oct 2005 Moore 25% Riley 44%

Jan 2005 Moore 43% Riley 35%

Guess his act has worn thin even down there.

The primary is June 6.

"Howling Chaos"

From Newsweek's Michael Hirsh:

April 3, 2006 - There's nothing like roaring into Baghdad aboard a Rhino. A Rhino is a giant, heavily-armored bus that can withstand IEDs (small ones), and it is now the favored means of keeping Western visitors from getting blown to bits by these homemade bombs on the dangerous road between Baghdad International Airport and the secure Green Zone at the city's center. "Rhino" is an appropriately Disney-ish name for these wheeled monstrosities, adding to the surreal feeling one gets in moving from the howling chaos outside the Green Zone into the theme park-like confines within. You drive through several checkpoints, leaving behind tracts of litter and rubble and the desperate, dark faces of ordinary Iraqis trying to earn a few dinars. There, behind high concrete blast walls and razor wire, you find quiet streets and the heart of the American occupation: a double-sized Olympic pool with a palm-fretted patio restaurant, food courts and a giant coffee lounge where lessons in belly dancing and martial arts are offered. All these are huge improvements from the last time I was in Baghdad, two years ago. And all are intended for the Westerners who dwell in increasing comfort here.

The Green Zone, a vast secure, American area plunked down in the heart of the Baghdad (imagine foreign occupiers taking over the Mall in Washington, D. C.), was supposed to have been temporary. Like the occupation itself, it was an interim phase, a set of training wheels for the New Iraq. But as those of us who accompanied Condoleezza Rice on her surprise visit to Iraq learned this week, the lines between the real and surreal in Iraq--between what's happening outside the Green Zone and within--are only hardening. They are getting bolder and clearer, rather than more blurred. Outside the Green Zone the sectarian violence is worsening--ensuring future dysfunction, if perhaps not outright civil war or breakup of the country. Inside the Green Zone a few Iraqi politicians live in splendor and permanent American structures are going up--including a new U.S. embassy that did not await the OK of the new government-to-come--and it's hard to find an ordinary Iraqi anywhere. In fact, several people remarked that speaking Spanish is more useful than Arabic when making one's way through the palatial embassy grounds.

Secretary of State Rice came here to bring the surreal and the real closer into contact. Acting on the orders of an increasingly anxious George W. Bush (so she admitted under questioning), she and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spent a day reading the riot act to the bickering Iraqi politicians and telling them to "get governing," as Bush put it. She and Straw, sensing like everyone that their historical reputations are on the line (as are those of Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair), are hoping to break the stalemate that has kept the leading Iraqi political parties from forming a unity government for nearly four months. But again, reflecting the Green Zone prism, Rice and Straw seemed not to understand that a genteel coalition government, as designed by U.S. authorities, may not be what Iraq needs right now. What Iraq needs is strong leadership.

For Washington, the biggest problem is that despite increasing American desperation to pull out, the U.S. presence is gradually getting woven into the very fabric of the new Iraq, much as the Green Zone (now euphemistically called the "international zone") is getting a permanent look. Picture NATO troops in Bosnia--there more than a decade and counting--and then multiply that pathological dependence several times over. So terrified are most Shia leaders of Sunni insurgents that they regularly blanch when faced with the prospect of U.S. withdrawal. So terrified are the Sunnis of Shiite militias that they insist on having Americans accompany any Iraqi military units that move into their towns. Absent U.S. guidance and advisors, the Iraqi army will become a Shiite Army, and the Sunni community will become a sea for the insurgency to swim in once again. When the war started, some observers worried that Iraq might become America's "51st state," a virtual protectorate of Washington's. Today the worry is that America has become Iraq's 19th province--and the most important one in the country.

Again, the Americans don't seem to fully understand this. A Western intelligence expert who recently sat in on briefings by U.S. and Iraqi military officers in Baghdad described a disconnect between U.S. occupation authorities and Iraqi officials that was just as wide as what lies between the Green Zone and the rest of Iraq. The American officers, he said, spent an hour triumphantly describing how they had finally gotten the better of the insurgency while the Iraqis present doodled on their pads, their eyes glazing over. Then the Iraqis got up and described their nation's growing sectarian conflict in urgent terms while the Americans barely paid attention. The two teams, nominally allies, were simply talking past each other, he said.

Let us not forget that the great planner of this war, Donald Rumsfeld, once warned us about all this. (It was one of the few things he managed to anticipate.) In February of 2003--a month before the Iraq invasion—the Defense secretary outlined his theory of occupation. "When foreigners come in with international solutions to local problems, it can create a dependency," he said in a speech called "Beyond Nation Building." His remarks were scornful of previous United Nations efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor. "A long-term foreign presence in a country can be unnatural. It is much like a broken bone. If it is not set properly at the outset, eventually, the muscles and tendons will grow around the break, and the body will adjust to the abnormal condition. This is what has happened in a number of places with a large foreign presence. Economies remain unreformed, distorted and dependent. Educated young people make more money as drivers for foreign workers, than as doctors or civil servants."

This describes Iraq today. Rumsfeld, through fecklessness and arrogance, created the very problem that he criticized. Perhaps he doesn't really mind. One idea behind the war, it is clear, was to give America a big say in the future of this oil-flush nation. And, after all, we've never completely pulled our troops out of Germany or Japan either. Sixty years after occupation, that has worked fairly well for international peace. Rice, in a speech in Britain last week, laid out an eloquent vision of how she and Bush see their legacy. "Someday, people in Baghdad and Beirut and Cairo and, yes, in Tehran...will wonder how anyone could ever have doubted the future of liberal democracy in their countries. But most of all, they will remember fondly those fellow democracies, like Britain and the United States...who stood with them in their time of need."

Whether fondly or not, the Iraqis won't have too much trouble remembering that the Americans were there. Why? Probably because the Americans won't have left yet.

Wow. Wait'll the wingnuts get a load of this. Pretty hard-hitting. Some might call it hyperbole. But unless the Green Zone walls come down and unless a large portion of U.S. troops come home and stay home, this will be the reality transcribed by journalists who stick around to cover our dignitaries' "surprise" visits.

Tracking the Radical Religious Right

The Carpetbagger Report links to two important pieces on the Christian Right: The most recent is a commentary on the "War on Christians" conference sponsored by Rick Scarborough of Vision America, recently held in Washington, D.C. and a link to the People For the American Way's coverage of the "event". The PFAW link is a very good read. The War on Christians meme has been flogged by the right wing media establishment over the last couple of years and many of the actors active in it are probably familiar to you.

But an earlier posting deserves even more attention. It concerns a leading demogogue on the Christian right who has largely flown under the radar, but who I suspect may prove to be an influential figure in the days and months to come. For reasons that I think will be apparent in the Carpetbagger's link to the New Republic article, conservative Roman Catholic "Father" Richard John Neuhaus may be, if possible, the scariest of the theocons. The New Republic article is long, and you will have to register for it on the magazine's website (the registration is free), but it is well worth a thoughtful read.

In addition to his work at the conservative journal First Things, Neuhaus also appears on the conservative Roman Catholic cable television station EWTN. Neuhaus, along with another RC theocon, George Weigel, is a regular on EWTN's The World Over, a "700 Club"-like survey of "world news" shown every Friday night. So Neuhaus's influence extends beyond the fishbowl of conservative think tanks and into the world of something approaching regular media. On a side note, First Things was the host of a 2002 gathering on Christianity and the public square that included none other than Justice Scalia, who basically argued that applying the death penalty is a society's right and obligation BECAUSE all governments derive their sovereignty from God and serve as the Arm of the Lord on earth. Americans who think that the U.S. Constitution reflects popular sovereignty might be curious and alarmed about this reasoning.

Neuhaus, a former Lutheran, has also reached across the denominational divide to partner with former Watergate felon, Charles Colson, in bringing likeminded Roman Catholics and evangelical Christians together for the cause of purging the country of "secularism". They formed an association and put out a book entitled Evanglicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission, a document which is pretty much the "other" bible among cultural warriors.

Ultimately, Neuhaus is important because as the New Republic article author points out, he is apparently a believer in, and has attempted to fuse together, a theory of religious-political domination, based not on the relatively narrower realms of conservative evangelicalism, but rather on 13th century Natural Law constructs. For Neuhaus, his society's patron saint isn't Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton or Andrew Jackson. It is rather, the 13th century saint-philosopher, Thomas Acquinas. In the words of Ving Rhames' character in Pulp Fiction, Neuhaus wants to get Medieval on us. As The Rogue Progressive might say, Neuhaus is a leading Feudalist-regressive among us.

Anyway, Senator Bulworth says read both pieces by the PFAW and the New Republic. And thanks to the Carpetbagger Report for the links.

Cart, meet Horse

The NYT:

A prominent Republican in Washington who consults often with the White House said Mr. Bolten, who is to assume his duties next month, wants Mr. Bush to replace the Treasury secretary, John W. Snow, with someone who can more forcefully communicate the administration's message that the economy is strong.

(snip)

Republicans said that if Mr. Bush turned to Wall Street for a new Treasury secretary, it could help reassure financial markets, which are increasingly worried about record-high budget and trade deficits.

So, the need is for someone to sell us all on how great the economy is doing, not for someone to develop a plan for eradicating the "record-high budget and trade deficits." And come to think of it, the selling and communicating skills being sought for the new Treasury Post remind me of um, oh yeah, the LAST change-over in the economic "team" by this White House.

At last the Bush economic trifecta is complete. John Snow, William Donaldson and Stephen Friedman will now settle into their new jobs, with their first assignment clear: Put out the Administration's tax cut message. The White House wants to make permanent its 2001 tax break, which totaled just over $1.3 trillion. So rather than expire in 2010, as it is currently scheduled to do, the tax cut will live on into perpetuity — or at least until another administration comes in and orders its reversal.

Snow, Donaldson and Friedman are being prepped to tell the American public two things: 1. Tax cuts will jump-start the nation's sluggish economy. And 2. Said tax cut is worth it, even if it happens to drag us into a deficit. Both these messages need to sanded, finished and lacquered for public consumption by the middle of January, when President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address — the domestic cornerstone of which is expected to be economic revitalization. And so, as the new keys to the Bush economic message, Snow, Donaldson and Friedman are our People of the Week.

Will the three deliver believable sound bites? If they don't, they risk a similar fate to that of Paul O'Neill and Larry Lindsay, neither of whom proved capable of selling tax cuts to a wary Capitol Hill. Both men were asked to leave the administration last week in a bout of epic housecleaning.

Give Thanks

She's a Dem consultant. They have Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. We have Flavia. Any questions?

Senator Bulworth Hearts Lara Logan

CBS's Lara Logan layeth the smacketh down to conservative complaints about the media's coverage of Operation Occupy Iraq.

Logan: Laura Ingraham should spend some time over here in Iraq instead of critiquing the media's coverage from the comfort of her studio.

Kurtz: Actually Ingraham was in Iraq recently for eight days.

Logan: Eight days?!

Watch the whole thing.

Should Afghanistan "give in" to international pressure

and substitute international notions of basic human rights in place of its own constitution and religious mores?

This may sound like a callous question to raise regarding the case of the Afghan Christian convert facing a death penalty under Sharia law in Afghanistan.

But isn't this basically the complaint of far-right conservatives in this country when U.S. Supreme Court justices appear to base their decisions at least in part on international laws and concepts of human rights? Complaints that have, as the link points out, reached the level of death threats?

By all means, yes, let's bring to bear whatever pressure we can to prevent this execution from going forward, and in ensuring that governments in Afghanistan and Iraq understand the need to work towards pluralistic and Democratic societies. In his West Virginia appearance Wednesday, President Bush indicated the U.S. had the ability to apply such pressure and that he would ensure that it did.

But it points to one of the problems the nation faces in reconstructing governments and societies in the Middle East. And our interest in making sure that these budding democracies gain an appreciation for modernist international norms such as the freedom of religion, democracy, and the basic human rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" should serve as a barometer to our more home-grown conservative bretheran and sisterhood that these freedoms and rights apply to our own citizens as well.

And it should go without saying that NO ONE should be killed based on their religious beliefs. But the pre-modernist cultures of the Middle East are not alone in wanting to base their constitutions on centuries-old religious books of poetry and apocalyptic writing, as Christian Reconstructionists want to do today, or in favoring the execution of religious dissenters, as the Christian church did in the Middle Ages.

Jack Cafferty has a question

Tweety played host to an Army National Guardsman and his wife last night, the woman who asked President Bush at a bubble-protected appearance in West Virginia on Wednesday how they could get the media to report the good news in Iraq, instead of all the bad news.

Tweety fawned over the couple last night, telling the woman how brave she was for asking the President a question, and gee, yeah, maybe the media should do better at providing some "balance" to the Iraq coverage.

What a wanker that pseudo-populist Tweety is.

But thank goodness for Jack Cafferty:

From Crooks and Liars:

BLITZER: Very briefly, is there any sign of a backlash against the mainstream media because of our coverage of what's happening in Iraq?

KURTZ: Yes, among conservatives, among military family members and others. A lot of people, as we saw that woman from West Virginia, blaming us for the situation there.

CAFFERTY:..You know, I just have a question. I mean, part of the coverage, they don't like the coverage, maybe because we were sold a different ending to this story three years ago. We were told that we'd be embraced as conquering heroes, flower pedals strewn in the soldiers' paths, a unity government would be formed, everything would be rosy this -- three years after the fact, the troops would be home.

Well, it's not turning out that way. And if somebody came into New York City and blew up St. Patrick's Cathedral and in the resulting days they were finding 50 and 60 dead bodies a day on the streets of New York, you suppose the news media would cover it? You're damn right they would.

This is nonsense, it's the media's fault and the news isn't good in Iraq. The news isn't good in Iraq. There's violence in Iraq. People are found dead every day in the streets of Baghdad. This didn't turn out the way the politicians told us it would. And it's our fault? I beg to differ.

Powerline's Paul Mirengoff and Fox's Brit Hume Parrot Same GOP Talking Point on David Ignatius

A coincidence?

I rarely watch the Sunday talk shows but did turn in to see ReddHead from Firedoglake on C-Span's Washington Journal yesterday morning. ReddHead was on hand representing the liberal blogosphere and Paul Mirengoff from Powerline was there to represent the conservatives.

The portion of the panel I watched was largely uneventful, but I remember Mirengoff referencing a David Ignatius column in the Wash Post. According to Mirengoff, Ignatius is or has been a Bush-critic, particularly on the war, but in a recent column, Ignatius made what Mirengoff claims were statements to the effect that things are improving in Iraq, the president's policy is working, etc. So, see, says Mirengoff, even Bush's critics are coming on board (as former supporters, like National Review founder, William F. Buckley has, at least on the war, but I digress).

I don't follow Ignatius enough to know whether he's been a consistent Bush critic or not, and I didn't think much about Mirengoff's statement until this morning when my radio alarm woke me to the sounds of yesterday's taped round table panel discussion from Fox News Sunday.

And I heard administration-apologist Brit Hume make the same reference to Ignatius. Like Mirengoff, Hume conjured up the name David Ignatius, his status as legendary Bush critic, his perch at the Wash Post, and a recent column by the same in which the former Bush antagonist says his trip to Iraq and interviews with members of the U.S. military convince him the president is on the right track. Or words to that effect.

Anyway, I clicked on the Wash Post on-line op-ed pages and the last two columns by Ignatius are available and both seem to imply an optimistic message on Iraq, based, it appears, on his recent travel there (his stay presumably within the Green Zone).

I'm not sure which column in particular Mirengoff and Hume were referring to, but I thought it strange--maybe not so strange in the larger scheme of things--that first Mirengoff and then Hume would use the Ignatius article as a talking point.

Maybe Hume was watching Mirengoff on Washington Journal and simply parroted Mirengoff's line. Maybe they each came up with it independently after faithfully reading the liberal Wash Post and Bush-hating Ignatius in particular. Or maybe both received the Ignatius reference from GOP spin headquarters some time earlier and coordinated their lines from it. Or maybe people like Mirengoff and Hume are responsible for setting the GOP talking points themselves. Either way, Ignatius seems to me too irrelevant a figure for both Hume and Mirengoff to find him and his column signficant enough to mention during their respective programs.

Given the sliding public perception of the war in Iraq, this particular administration defense seemed rather lame. So lame in fact I doubt its occurence can be coincidental. As such I think it's a good illustration of how the administration and its apologists are trying to coordinate a plan of attack.

Liberals should take note.

Man on Fire--Russ Has Had Enough

When I first read this:

I'm amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president's numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide...too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they'll say we'd better just focus on domestic issues...[Democrats shouldn't] cower to the argument, that whatever you do, if you question administration, you're helping the terrorists.

I assumed Atrios was linking to comments from another blogger.

He wasn't. The remarks came from a sitting member of the U.S. Senate. You'll forgive my surprise. It's been a long time since I'd heard anything with this much starch coming from a party spokesman. Are Democratic party officials allowed to speak like this? Are they allowed to speak at all?

Just about as I was recovering from the shock of a Democratic spine running amok in the nation's capital, I came acrossed this:

It seems to me appropriate, when the spin machines are out there and people are using various language, to come out and reiterate my reasons for doing this.

I think that the press decided immediately that somehow this was a bad thing for Democrats and a good thing for conservatives. The facts don't bear it out. You don't have the polls to prove it. The way my colleagues are responding to me suggests to me they're thinking about this, that they feel that there has to be some accountability.

So the instant decision about what the story is, actually, I think is going to backfire on those who made up the story. I don't get the feeling that I had on Monday about this -- yes, people were concerned -- I'm not getting that.

And if the right wing really believes in this country that -- Rush Limbaugh and others -- that they can somehow turn the president's reputation around by saying, "You're darn right he violated the law, and it's a good thing," I think they're just as confused as they are about their Iraq politics. People aren't buying it anymore.

So not only do I not regret it, I felt an absolute obligation to do it.

Dude's on fire. He's mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore.

Speaking of Network, I think Digby makes about as good a case as any as to why Feingold apparently didn't consult with the party elders before introducing his resolution to censure:

It's apparently true that Feingold didn't consult with the party. But considering the response I can sort of see his point. They are so unimaginative and so sluggish that he didn't see the use in playing the party game. If party coodination means being forced to wait for them to hold plodding press conferences about x-raying cargo boxes, then it's hard to see why anyone who wants to take the fight to the Republicans would bother.

I also got a gas from this comment by someone apparently embedded in the Democratic Party's inner sanctum:

First, a lot of Dems were bothered by the fact that Feingold took the party off-message.

bwwwouuuuuhgauwujjweeoelo!!!!?!??!?

Off-message??!?!?! There's a message?!?? Really?!!?

Republicans characteristically responded that Feingold's resolution was a political show and that the Senator was auditioning for the '08 nomination by playing to the Democratic crazies in the blogosphere.

Despite the snark, this depiction of the resolution and Russ's speech makes some sense at first glance. But I don't think that's it. I think this guy just does what he wants based on what he believes. That's pretty much been his M.O. Votes to confirm the president's cabinet appointments. Stands alone against the Patriot Act.

And besides, since when did speaking out and making waves endear anyone to the media establishment that tells us who is electable and who isn't?

No, I don't think this is a political stunt in the usual sense of that concept. But he's making a believer at this site, nonetheless.

Hillary's Milk Carton

and other illustrations of compassionate conservatism from the conservative "culture of life".

The "Hillary's face on a milk carton" made an appearance at this weekend's "Southern Republican Leadership Conference" as well.

Why are Democrats so shrill and hate-filled?

Going on the Offensive

From Publius via LG&M:

I'd actually go a couple steps further. I would ask every single Republican candidate up for re-election in 2006: "Do you support imprisoning doctors for performing abortions following rapes, as South Dakota’s new law demands?" If they hid behind the rape exception, then you could follow up with Oliver’s question about whether doctors should be thrown in jail for performing abortions more generally.

The combination of the Alito and Roberts confirmations along with the South Dakota law is, I think, a watershed moment in the abortion wars. The South Dakota law in particular should serve as a wake-up call to the pro-choice movement that its tactics aren’t working and that it needs to make some changes in its long-term strategy. To develop Oliver’s point, if I were a consultant, I would recommend that the pro-choice movement make two major changes: (1) It should shift its emphasis from a defensive legal strategy to an offensive political strategy; (2) It should shift the debate away from abortion itself – and the abstract questions of when life begins – and focus on crime and punishment. In other words, the movement should aim to make an abstract debate more concrete by focusing on criminal sanctions and the imprisonment of doctors and women.

This sounds about right to me, and long overdue. This Fox News poll seems about on par with most others I've seen in terms of capturing the public sentiment on abortion. Those favoring (albeit restricted) abortion rights tally about 55% and the no-abortion crowd gets about 40%. I don't think adding the criminal penalties for abortion providers and receivers is going to increase the odds for the anti-abortion crowd. Indeed, as Digby as documented, even the most radical anti-abortionists haven't even thought about it.

Republicans have skillfully put Democrats over the barrel on the abortion question for about two decades now. It's high time Democrats started to fight back. And while it's heartening that after some hemming and hawing Sherrod Brown ultimately posed this question in his interview with Matt, I wasn't reassured that the Ohio Senate candidate seemed locked-in to an economically populist campaign strategy in '06. Like many Democrats, Brown seems scared of confronting cultural issues. As long as Democrats are defensive about this, they'll continue to lose seats and power, and what's worse, they'll continue to struggle with articulating a political philosophy and party rationale.

Nevertheless, I don't think Democrats should at the same time be required to back an abortion-at-any-cost strategy either. I think this has hurt the party both in immediate terms for having to oppose very late trimester abortion procedures that most feeling people consider repugnant--and with the availability of birth control--unnecessary as well as in more deeply seated views of the party's cultural sensitivities nationally.

Speaking of birth control, you might remember I penned a post a week or two back highlighting a religious freedom statement put together by 55 of the Catholic Democrats in the House, some officially "anti-abortion" and others "pro-choice". I caught an article in the Catholic Standard the other day that had Theodore McCarrick of the Washington, D.C. Archdiocese responding to the Democrats' effort. McCarrick sounded what seemed to me a nuanced reply, noting that he and the group were likely to agree on some things, disagree on others, but which put the abortion issue in a broader light, seemingly not making it an article of faith that Catholic legislators oppose any and all abortion restriction bills. I wish I had the actual article on hand because I couldn't find it online.

Anyway, and regrettably, yesterday's Post had a short item with the headline "Catholic Democrats Scolded on Abortion":

Top U.S. Roman Catholic leaders told Democratic lawmakers yesterday that there is no wiggle room in church teaching on abortion and that they are duty-bound to work against "the destruction of unborn human life." The statement by three top leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is a response to 55 Catholic Democrats in the House who issued a public statement Feb. 28 asking for room to disagree on abortion.

The bishops, in turn, said they were willing to work together on issues affecting the "poor and vulnerable" but would not budge on church teaching that says abortion is gravely immoral.

"While it is always necessary to work to reduce the number of abortions . . . Catholic teaching calls all Catholics to work actively to restrain, restrict and bring an end to the destruction of unborn human life," the bishops said.

The three bishops who signed the statement were Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, head of the bishops' Pro-Life Activities Committee; Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who heads a task force on Catholic politicians; and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, chairman of the bishops' Domestic Policy Committee.

Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), who spearheaded the letter on Capitol Hill, said in a statement that she appreciated the bishops' response but did not address the bishops' rejection of Catholic lawmakers' request to respectfully disagree with the church on abortion.

The bishops note the Catholic legislators responsibility to "work actively to restrain, restrict and bring to an end the destruction of unborn human life". Maybe destroying born human life is OK. In any event, one way to of course bring about the "restraining, restricting and ending" of abortion is to provide and practice birth control. But the Roman Catholic church opposes this, too.

It's beyond the author's ability and space of this website to attempt to dissect the Roman Catholic church's opposition to birth control. But according to Garry Wills, himself a lifelong and continuing Catholic, the church's reasonings have varied over the years, being consistent mostly for the fact they feel the need to reaffirm whatever was taught by the church for centuries, even if the underlying rationale for the doctrine changes and even if science and common sense has debunked the myths and superstitions of past eras.

Writing in Papal Sin, Wills notes that the great church father, Augustine of Hippo, opposed the contraception methods of the time--what would be called in later years, the natural "rhythm method". This largely had to do with the fact that groups and broader heresies Augustine opposed practiced this method. The early church also opposed contraception due to the magic and potions that were believed to be used in its behalf.

By the time of revered Catholic theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, the church condemned, on natural law grounds, the interference with the "integrity" of the sex act that any form of contraception was believed to prevent. Aquinas, in the logic of the era, considered masturbation worse than incest since the latter preserved "the integrity of the act" (that is, fertilization). The church did, however, authorize the coitus interruptus method of contraception in order to placate the lust of the woman and the man's responsibility in marriage.

Still later, the coitus interruptus method itself came under fire, linked by Pope Pius XI in the 1930's with the grave sin of Onus in Genesis 38 where God is said to have killed the son of Judah for not marrying his deceased brother's wife and bearing his brother's seed through her, instead ejactulating on the ground.

The "natural rhythm method", opposed by Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries, gained greater favor in the church as a natural means of contraception after its science was published in greater detail in the 1940's. After a Vatican commission set up by Pope John XXIII during the Vatican II conference in the 1960's recommended that the church's reliance on the natural rhythm method and its natural law origins be abandoned, due in part to the now presence of oral contraceptives, Pope Paul VI responded by instead affirming the church's opposition to contraception in his encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, a widely derided document that many bishops felt obliged to ignore. Despite the fact that the Vatican commission had received survey data from devout catholics indicating the flaws, natural and relational, from the rhythm method, Pope Paul VI helped ensure the practice's at least official blessing and authority.

Paul VI's successor, Pope John Paul the First, who lasted a month in office before dying in 1978, issued a statement praising the in-vitro-fertalization (IVF) of a couple, leading Wills to conclude that had he lived, Pope John Paul the First would have revised the church's teaching on contraception. Instead, his passing led to the election of Pope John Paul II, and the rest, as they say, is history. Pope JPII, more than his predecessors, understood the need to stack the deck, so to speak, by appointing as bishops and cardinals, those who shared his philosophies, ensuring that in his aftermath, conservative popes would continue into the 21st century.

Hence, we have, the conservative Catholic opposition to both abortion and "artificial" contraception. So Democratic Catholics are damned if they do, damned if they don't. To "restrain, restrict and end" abortion, they could back greater efforts to educate and provide for means of birth control, but this the church also opposes. The Democratic Catholics who support birth control but would allow--for reasons Publius, Matt, Digby and others have pointed out--some abortion choice, could of course, leave the church and cease to be catholics.

But the church would then be left with still declining numbers and shrinking parishes, and a clash between conservative political correctness and the advances of modernity and progressive governance in the war of civilizations so embraced by leading figures on the right, but one not just between Islam and the West, but within the West itself, as radical Islam and radical Christianity find common ground.

Bored with Bush

Probably the only thing sadder than the spectacle of Tweety, Chuck Todd, and MSNBC's Softball going all orgy on the Southern Republican Leadership Conference's 2008 straw poll this weekend is me writing another post on the subject.

But as the Daily Kos and Atrios have noticed, even for Tweety, his enthusiasm for this weekend's faux show--with 40% of the "delegates" from Tennessee, and with the majority leader's having bussed in a load of "supporters", this was designed as a Frist! coronation, his last apparently given that his speech bombed--seems a bit too neurotic given the fact that WE HAVEN'T EVEN REACHED THE 2006 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS YET.

What could be the cause for such a fixation, so early?

I suppose the best explanation lies in the hang-over Tweety and the boys are experiencing as the Bush presidency has pretty much collapsed three years before the finish line, its Rovian faux heroism and machoism all spent up, leaving its male fans scrounging in their pockets, wondering where all the money went, like an onleave soldier's monthly pay ravished in the pit of Los Angeles's Tropicana female oil-wrestling strip joint. But now that the auctioned money has been spent, the girls aren't around, and the club has just closed for the night, the boys suddenly realize they've been had. The party's over.

Their Bush infatuation started with the bullhorn moment at Ground Zero and crescendoed with the Top Gun attired, jet-landing on the air-craft carrier. The drunken binge inspired by Rove's minions has left the president's media admirers in a sad stupor, feeling left behind at the alter, alone on the prom night while somewhere, somebody else is getting over.

As Wolcott noted a while back in discussing another Bush groupie suckered in by the Shock and Awe Iraq campaign--Don Imus--the president's former boosters are bored now. The fun with Iraq has long worn off, the president's once shining gloss given a rough sanding.

2006? Well, the GOP already controls both chambers so this fall's elections don't promise to give Tweety's gang anything to get excited about.

But the 2008 race offers the potential for the boys to become infatuated with someone else, to be born again if you will, dreaming of when a new hero can take over; Heck, they're ready to annoint someone already so they can start with the new story-line. Tweety already has his eyes on the new dish in class--John McCain--and breathlessly announced on the 9pm special tonight that coming up he had an "exclusive" interview with the Senator, who finished at the bottom of the pack and who if you watch any TV "news" programs at all would have an impossible time missing, he's on so much. An "exclusive" interview with McCain? Is this what the media has come to?

Meanwhile, after a month of having the UAE ports deal lead on every cable outlet, and just when the Dubai company's withdrawal was thought to give the president some breathing room, his former top domestic policy advisor, who left the WH last month "to spend more time with his family" has been arrested for fraud and theft in Montgomery County, MD, accused of stealing from local Target stores.

You can't make this stuff up.

Tweety Hearts Republican Candidates for President

I watched Softball tonight, with Tweety and the gang broadcasting from Memphis where the first Republican cattle-call for '08 is taking place, courtesy of something called the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Most of the 2008 prospects are scheduled to speak.

Tweety was on with Charlie Cook and Howard Fineman, although I bet those two were sorry they put themselves through the spectacle, as any insightful analysis they might have wanted to offer was drowned out by Tweety's panting after John McCain. Tweety reminded us about 59 times how McCain had instructed his supporters to write in a vote for President Bush in tomorrow's straw poll, as if this was somehow another chain in the link establishing what a magnanimous fellow this John McCain is, what a straight-up guy, teamplayer.

He also managed to point out that McCain's move had irritated the other candidates, especially Senator Frist who was aiming for a landslide in his backyard tomorrow.

Cook and Fineman did manage to counter, though, that the McCain gesture seemed rather, well, calculating, and not at all like the straight-shooter, authentic guy they've been telling us about for the last 6 years.

Tweety did get Cook to admit that he basically saw the GOP nomination as coming down to Mass Gov Mitt Romney, VA Senator George Allen, and McCain.

From there Tweety went all aflutter, gushing about the grand old time they all were going to have down there in the volunteer state observing the GOP hopeful review their future candidates. Apparently Romney had already spoken today, and the biggest lines of applause he got were in reference to--wait a minute now--gay marriage and making immigrants (I suppose Mexican ones) learn the King's English. Kind of makes you wonder what someone like Andrew Sullivan sees in this crowd that makes him continue to want to identify himself as a conservative Republican.

Anyway, Tweety did flag down Trent Lott and George Allen for interviews, too, forcing them to talk about his man, McCain (he later interviewed Lindsay Graham, one of McCain's most prominent backers in the U.S. Senate--are you catching a theme here?) and McCain's magnanimous act of calling on his supporters to write in a vote for George 37% Bush tomorrow, and gee, ain't McCain swell.

This really was Tweety at his worst. In the regular studio when there's an issue at hand, he can sometimes come through, but tonight he was like an overwrought adolescent boy at movie audition hoping to get the part of Lindsay Lohan's love interest. He appeared so enthused with the Republican line-up I hope he manages not to explode before the straw poll tomorrow.

I imagine that whenever the first Democratic one of these rolls around, Softball will either not bother with it, or Tweety and the crew will cover it from their perches in Washington, ensuring to bring the usual cast of characters on the panel to bash Hillary or whatever other sad sack of a Democrat is needing of roasting at the moment.

In any event, beyond the McCain salivating (I have a hard time understanding why after all these years there hasn't been anything resembling an objective portrait of the man) by Tweety and his entourage, the crew seemed eager to push George Allen as a contender for reasons that also remain unclear to me. Allen has scored well with the conservative blogosphere (which again sort of begs the question), but I think he's a much less substantive candidate, and far less intriguing than Sam Brownback or Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee. For their part, Tweety and the boys seemed pretty dismissive of Brownback, perhaps not stopping to consider that a Senator from the Ike state, especially one with such a fundy rep, might play pretty well in border state Iowa's first in the nation caucus, where another Kansas Senator, Bob Dole, won in 1988 (and in which televangelist Marion "Pat" Robertson came in second, ahead of Poppy Bush). Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee's from nearby, too, and as a Baptist minister, and a governor, might also show some strength in Iowa.

But no mind, tonight was the night for Tweety to extol the virtues of his man, John McCain. And if that fails, to make sure George Allen gets some facetime in front of the cameras (to be fair, CNN did an interview with the son of the late Redskin coach as well).

What's the compelling rationale behind an Allen candidacy? He sounds, if possible, even more oblivious to the world than W. It's hard to believe that after the government ineptness of the last year and a half in particular, that the electorate would be in the mood for another empty suit. Then again...

Abortion Debate on Demand

There have been some very good posts on abortion over at the Daily Kos, FireDogLake, Digby, LG&M, and Lance Mannion in the past several days.

The Lance Mannion post is particularly interesting in that it represents a lefty blogger admitting to feeling conflicted about abortion and of even more significance is the almost reasoned debate that gets carried out in the comments between advocates and opponents of abortion rights. There are a number of comments with the post and if you're interested in a healthy debate about the topic I heartily encourage you to go on over and give it a read.

For those more inclined towards the snarkier side of things, I would recommend the other postings. Digby discusses the contradiction inherent in the fact that anti-choicers claim that abortion is murder, but yet don't seem to have ever thought about what the penalty should be for women who illegally obtain an abortion, or in the case of policymakers, such as the ones in S.D., who haven't even bothered writing them into the anti-abortion law they just passed. Digby provides several good links regarding this. Note especially the Tweety interview with Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey from 2004.

The other point of interest is the tendency of those on both sides of the debate to refer to the most extreme situations to demonstrate their opponents' unreasonableness.

For anti-choicers, the favored highlight reel is the partial birth abortion, with their emphasis, real or hypothetical, on cases where the doctor basically punctures the infant's head with scissors after withdrawing it from the womb.

For pro-choicers, its the overstretched logic on the part of anti-abortionists that demands that life begins at "conception" and that any abortion, or contraceptive that interferes with this is tantamount to murder. So, for the most rigid anti-abortionists, an infant, or a living adult, is no different than the zygote or blastocyst. So if abortion has to be outlawed, so do IVF and s stem-cell research. FireDogLake has a pretty good riff on this:

Whenever I hear wingnuts arguing about stem cell research I always get the feeling that they are doing so under duress, like reluctant Visigoths who’ve been forced to carry the battle into a town they really don’t care about sacking. But having made the argument that women should not have control over their own bodies and be entitled to an abortion because even the littlest zygote amongst us is sacred, and not because they hate and fear women and want to relegate them to the social role of biological functionaries, they have to naturally extend the argument and oppose embryonic stem cell research as well. You know, for consistency’s sake and all.

But Lance makes the point that the decision on when life begins is an ambigious one, putting both supporters and opponents of abortion rights in a difficult position. Tring to take it back to the moment of fertilization-conception (see PZ Myers' discussion at the Daily Kos for more detail) results in the argument that the zygote or blastocyst is a person, while abortion rights advocates basically end up demanding abortion access at any point in time for any reason. Lance seems to feel, and I tend to agree, that the extremes here are equally hard to identify with. And I'm afraid I can't agree with LG&M that a partial birth abortion--regardless of what it is called--is morally neutral.

But if life isn't a life at "conception", it certainly seems to be one by at least by the third trimester, making the middle periods the time of doubt and decision. At the same time, I've come to feel as if the trimester demarcations, and the viable-not viable delineations are problematic. Yet they may be all we have if we don't want to make abortions or contraceptives illegal at the zygote-blastocyst stage but want to restrict the practice nearer to birth.

Which brings us to one of the columns that kick-started some of the discussion, the column by William Saleton, which appeared in the WashPost Sunday and may have been cross-posted on Slate. Saleton, whose critics think he's too much an appeaser of the anti-abortion right, seems eager to dispense with the rationales of Roe with the hope that education and contraception access will do the job of eliminating most abortions, giving both sides some of what they want.

But it does beg the question that if contraception here in the U.S. is basically widely available, and if contraception access is what has limited abortion in Europe, why does the U.S. still have relatively high rates of abortion? While unapologetic pro-choicers don't seem to have a problem with this, much of the public may, particularly if the anti-abortion movement continues to make, however temporary, gains in state legislatures and state houses in dramatically restricting abortion rights. Because if they do, and if the actions taken by S.D. and those under consideration in Mississippi have ripple effects, access to contraception will emerge with even greater importance.

One final point. Some pro-choicers are making the point that although illegal, abortions in Latin America are much higher than in the U.S. The point being that even if abortion was to be outlawed in the U.S. it would undoubtedly still continue, probably even at high levels, but just more widely available to wealthier women.

I'm not sure this conclusion is warranted. I don't know a lot about the media or pressure group politics in Mexico, but if anti-abortionists succeed or have succeeded in reducing the availability of abortion providers, the remaining ones could easily be isolated by many of the same groups that have laid seige to abortion clinics in the past, making abortion access much more difficult. Add to that any influence right-wing media outlets might provide in isolating and highlighting abortion providers, and the illegalization of abortion in the U.S. could in fact be more enforceable than in other countries where it is currently illegal but in which abortions continue to be obtained at high levels. Call it the new case of American Exceptionalism.

A No Point Agenda

By now you've probably heard about or read yourself, this NYT--frontpage--column detailing, again, that although the Republicans are in trouble, Democrats don't have an alternative plan to present to voters, thanks to Howard Dean the party is short of cash on hand, and the party leadership and its 2006 candidates are divided on Iraq, health care, taxes, and whether or not to campaign on George Bush's rug fetish.

No doubt articles like these, which seem to be used as regular page A1 filler about every other day now, have got you down, and combined with the rather underwhelming efforts to enumerate a Contract with America like document by the DNC and the CAP, have you ready to go hunting with Dick Cheney.

But fear not.

Read this. And this. And what E.J.Dionne says, too.

I've come to believe, as these authors have, that there's no great need, and very little utility in, having Democrats come up with a national plan of bulleted items for its candidates to campaign on.

Why not? Well, the Democrats main objective needs to be to blunt the Republicans' agenda. Electing Democrats is the best way to do that. And if the Democratic Party is going to return to majority status someday, it probably is going to do so by assembling a weird patchwork of coalition partners spread across different regions, united by its diversity. The Republicans are the party whose ideology over the long run demands conformity and uniformity. The liberalism of Democrats, I would argue, does not.

But there are some more immediate reasons why trying to assemble a unifying message right now is unlikely to work. For one, the issues, and the various messes the country finds itself in right now--exploding deficit and national debt, the war in Iraq, cleaning up from Katrina, rebuilding FEMA as well as the Gulf Coast, brewing conflicts in Iran and North Korea, the election of Hamas in Palestine, etc--don't lend themselves to quick or simplistic solutions or slogans. And they don't necessarily carry the same weight across every state or congressional district. Finally, when the enemy is drowning, don't throw them a life-line. The public seems to have gotten the message that the Iraqi conflict has not gone as planned, and is not close to being resolved peacefully, without the aid of an informative, unbiased media, and without the aid of a visible anti-war movement. The Democratic Party doesn't have to help by giving the Republicans an easy target--such as would be the case for example if the party decides to run with a "bring the troops home now" kind of message (more about this later). Letting individual candidates decide on the best strategies for their campaigns and their regions is a more likely key to success than any awkward attempt to establish some kind of consistent theme or themes equally relevant and compelling to all the country's voters.

So, let's not take the bait being offered here to force the party or any of its particular candidates into a box of the media's, or the Republican Party's, liking. We're ahead--but the media is intent on lowering the expectations bar for Democrats. Let's keep it that way.

Syllabus of Errors

Ever wonder what the Golden Age of church supremacy was like? Try this papal document from 1864 on for size.

Some statements the encyclical condemned as false include:

"human reason... is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil" (No. 3)

"...hence reason is the ultimate standard by which man can and ought to arrive at the knowledge of all truths of every kind." (No. 4)

"in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship." (No. 77)

"Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church" (No. 18).

"the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church." (No. 55)

"every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) and that "it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship." (No. 78)

"the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization." (No. 80)

It may seem unfair to bring up material from almost two centuries ago, but keep in mind church apologists are attempting a little "historical revisionism" to rehabilitate the church's image in the West. The church is particularly anguished about the downturn in its hold over Europe, where attendance at, and support for, the Roman Catholic church, and Christianity in general has been in sharp decline for decades. The turning away from the church in states where the church is given official status should be a hint and a half for today's rabid evangelicals, dedicated to eradicating the separation of church and state. Meanwhile, today's conservative church spokesmen tend to attribute the church's decline in the West to a sufficient lack of orthodoxy among its leadership (among conservative Catholics, the modifications in the lurgy resulting from Vatican II are brought in for particular scorn) rather than the church's documented history of hostility to democracy, freedom and human rights.

On a somewhat related not, I've picked up a book about Opus Dei, the strict, secretive Catholic sect portrayed in The Da Vinci Code, but also known for its real life wealth, and the elites that comprise its membership, including Robert Hansen, the FBI agent caught spying for Russia a few years ago, as well as U.S. Senators Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, both of whom have been mentioned as presidential candidates in '08. The case of Sam Brownback is particularly interesting, since he was until recently a devout evangelical, and hails from a part of the U.S. that is likewise strongly protestant.

The Hits Keep on Coming

Army Opens Criminal Probe of Tillman's Death

Probably not going to help rehabilitate the President's public standing.

Facing Religion

Regular readers of this blog know I've been wringing my hands waiting for leading Democrats to put together some type of response regarding the role of religion in public life, rather than letting Republicans and their "tear down the 'wall' between church and state" interest groups hog the spotlight with only one highly distorted view of faith and religion.

Well, E.J.Dionne has a column in today's Post outlining just such a statement by Catholic Democrats in the House, 55 of them to be exact who have signed on. If the excerpts reflect the document's content, I think it could prove a useful blueprint for other Democrats and media pundits:

"As Catholic Democrats in Congress," the statement begins, "we are proud to be part of the living Catholic tradition -- a tradition that promotes the common good, expresses a consistent moral framework for life and highlights the need to provide a collective safety net to those individuals in society who are most in need. As legislators, in the U.S. House of Representatives, we work every day to advance respect for life and the dignity of every human being. We believe that government has moral purpose."

The statement is only six paragraphs, which gives it clarity and focus. After a paragraph on Catholic social teaching about the obligations to "the poor and disadvantaged," the writers get to the hard issue, insisting that "each of us is committed to reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and creating an environment with policies that encourage pregnancies to be carried to term."

What's significant is that this is not a statement from pro-choice Catholics trying to "reframe" the abortion question. The signatories include some of the staunchest opponents of abortion in the House, including Reps. Bart Stupak, Dale Kildee, Tim Holden, James Oberstar and James Langevin.

In other words, Democrats on both sides of the abortion question worry that it is crowding out all other concerns. And in very polite language, the Catholic Democrats suggest that their bishops allow them some room to disagree. "In all these issues, we seek the church's guidance and assistance but believe also in the primacy of conscience," they write in an echo of Kennedy. "In recognizing the church's role in providing moral leadership, we acknowledge and accept the tension that comes from being in disagreement with the church in some areas."

With any luck, this statement will provoke two debates, one outside the Catholic Church and one inside.

One of the troubling aspects of 2004 was the extent to which partisan politics invaded the churches and seemed to enlist them as part of the Republicans' electoral apparatus. But there is a difference between defending the legitimate right of churches to speak up on public questions and the hyperpoliticization of the church itself.

For Catholics with moderate or liberal leanings, the argument from some bishops that they could vote only for staunch foes of abortion posed a wretched dilemma. It seemed to demand that such voters cast their ballots for conservative or right-wing candidates with whom they might disagree on every other question -- social justice, war and peace, or the death penalty. All are areas where liberals are often closer to the church's view. "Our faith does and should affect how we deal with issues," DeLauro said. "But we're rebelling against the idea of a one-issue church."

If nothing else, these Catholic Democrats will haul out into the open a discussion with their bishops, with their fellow Catholics and with their constituents that has been festering underground. "We were silent for too long," DeLauro said. "And that meant you were defined by others, not by yourselves."

These excerpts reflect what appears to be strong, yet wide-spanning statement, one that acknowledges differences of opinion about sexual issues, such as abortion, and that affirms the church's right, indeed urges it, to speak out on those as well as other issues of moral significance. Yet it asserts the rights of parishioners and church members to make decisions based on freedom of conscience, reminding church leaders, and other politically motivated members, of the wide array of moral choices that parties and candidates espouse, and from which church members are able to choose.

Even were I to hold a staunch anti-abortion position, it hardly seems reasonable to make that the one issue upon which to vote, a decision that would in effect give conservative Republican mizers a pass on every other matter of public policy, from tax cuts and health care, to worker and consumer rights, voting rights protection, the right to privacy, war and foreign policy, and a host of other important matters.

Even if one issue were to carry significantly more weight than any other, an important element or elements in making a voting decision on that issue would be the matter of whether government policy requires or allows a questionable action and what the balance of power in the relationship is. This is particularly important regarding abortion, where the "actor" or "oppressor" is either left undefined by anti-choice advocates or is misdefined to infer that the government, in the form of the courts or liberal Democratic members of Congress, is morally responsible for the behavior of medical providers and the private decisions of women. Since anti-choice legislation either penalizes no one or penalizes only the doctor (see the S.D. legislation for an example) and leaves the person getting the abortion uncharged, the anti-choice movement is essentially disregarding the moral choice of the woman, a strange policy decision in the sense that the woman is not regarded as being a relevant actor in the situation, although because penalizing the woman would no doubt cause a firestorm of protest, this decision by anti-choicers is at least somewhat understandable, however illogical.

For a church hierarchy to make this one issue (or any one issue) essentially the only one of importance for its members is to do a great disservice to parishioners and the public. Considering the backtracking church leadership has had to do on a number of issues and decisions over the course of history, from the burning at the stake of people innocent of any crime other than doctrinal heresy (such as John Huss) to the punishing of scientists such as Galileo for daring to pursue knowledge apart from the church's belief in scripturally revealed "truth", and the support of Protestant churches in the south for slavery and segregation, the church, in its Catholic and Protestant manifestations, has good reasons to be careful in the area of public policy, at least in so far as it threatens to restrict its membership to one political party or on the basis of any one issue.

This isn't to say that the "church" should only speak out on economic issues, or only on behalf of the poor, or that the church should otherwise shut up about issues of sexual morality. I doubt the church would or could be restricted in that way, and even for those of us who may vigorously disagree with conservative bishops or theologians on any particular issue, I believe its vital that the churches give us the benefit of their study and reflection.

I also recognize that churches and doctrinal belief systems are inherently conflictual and controversial, and I don't expect religious leaders and believers to avoid any and all offensiveness. Most moral choices of necessity carry with them such offensiveness and conflict. I'd hope the church would eventually start siding with have nots rather than the haves of society, but I will welcome their contributions to the realm of public policy in any case. But Democrats need to come prepared to debate these issues and provide their constituents with the information and advocacy they deserve. These issues have been forced underground, not the least of which by Democrats themselves. It's time to bring them out of the closet, and for Democrats to be more assertive about discussing, and criticizing where need be, institutions and principles of faith.

In any event, bravo to Rep. DeLauro and her co-sponsors. I look forward to reading the document in its entirety.