A Pro-life Public Option? Who’d have thunk it?

The Daily Beast outlines how pro-life Democrats and a fairly moderate President Obama have been promising a Health Care Reform that would avoid using public money to fund abortions all along. So why are pro-choice Democrats so shocked? Maybe they were listening to the distortions of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party crowd.

In a July interview with Katie Couric and on the floor of Congress in September, President Obama promised there would be no public financing of abortion in health reform, meaning the procedure would not be available to women who opt in to any potential new public insurance plan. That pushed the goalposts closer to the pro-life position.

Others are pointing at the pro-choice groups themselves. Jane Hamsher, who runs the Netroots blog Firedoglake, says the organizations have gotten too cozy with the Democratic Party establishment, which often seeks to avoid public discussion of abortion. In the health-reform fight, NARAL and Planned Parenthood were less effective in advocating for their agenda than were proponents of the public insurance option, Hamsher said. “We went out and got commitments from members of the House to vote against any bill that doesn’t have a public option,” Hamsher told The Daily Beast. “They weren’t doing the same thing.”

Richards, of Planned Parenthood, said she wasn’t aware of any efforts, before Saturday’s vote, to extract promises from legislators to vote against a health bill that restricts abortion access. “Frankly, this issue came out Friday night,” she said. Yet Stupak has been on the warpath since July, when he released a letter signed by 19 Democrats demanding a ban on abortion coverage in the exchanges.

Eyes on the Prize

The Holy Scriptures warn us of false messiahs promising “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. However, the Good Book says precious little about folks who receive Nobel Peace prizes when they have no peace accomplishments to merit it. President Obama has been awarded this honor after a mere nine months on the job, with America embroiled in two land wars and, most recently, having just bombed the moon. The event is rich with irony. But our President accepted the award with appropriate humility and understood it as a reminder of what he has yet to be accomplished, rather than a metric of  “mission accomplished” achievements to quote his Nobel-prizeless predecessor. Whether Obama’s over-the-top apologetic rhetoric on foreign soil has emboldened terrorists remains to be seen. What is certain is his turning sabre-rattling into multilateral cooperation has at least emboldened our European allies. Which after the last eight years , is worth, at least, an honorable mention.

Beckworld

If you think the placards are scary, wait until you talk to the people holding them.

“The village idiot”

Wow! And I thought I was hard on the Christian Right. Frank Schaeffer, son of evangelical apologist Francis Schaeffer, lashes out at the evangelical political block. Or as he likes to call them, “the fifth column of insanity.”

Anything but those guys

Death Panels are sooo last week. The new GOP buzz words are “nameless, faceless bureaucrats” as in “I don’t want a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats making decisions on my health care.” Okay. It’s a deal. All bureaucrats involved in heath care decisions  shall be required to have both a name and a face just like all those sons-of-bitches at my HMO who are busy making all those decisions on my health care.

Less is more

Peggy Noonan has a word of advice for the president: Do less.

Mr. Obama’s White House is, at the moment, like most new White Houses. Every administration wants to do great things. Or, rather, it wants greatness. It wants to break through on some great issue or issues and claim to be, as they used to say, consequential…It’s adult to see limits, it’s right and realistic.

That’s right. Obama should do less to fix this mess. While he’s at it, he can make government less intrusive. In other words, he can become a Republican. Thanks, Peggy. It’s always nice to get advice from the opposition.

Yes, he can

JibJab has done it again.

Warning: David Letterman’s humor is in bad taste

It was the shot heard round the world. A cheap shot at Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old’s expense. Something from which young Willow should have been spared. But that goes at the bottom of an already long list of unfortunate things this young teen has had to endure over the past year. Add this to a mother who ambitiously accepts a nomination that would bring your older sister’s premarital shame into the limelight. Or the ridicule that results from a clueless parent trying to bluff her way through questions about world affairs. Or having siblings with first names that sound like moving parts in a Chevy engine  (Willow definitely got the best of those freakshow monikers). Or the embarrassment of every dumb thing your parents do being broadcasted to the planet. Remember how embarrassed you were to be seen with your parents at 14? Multiply that times a gazillion. Oh, and by the way, snarky cheap shots, tasteless jokes and lame non sequiturs have always been Dave Letterman’s brand of humor. Kinda surprised people are just noticing it.

The Obama Effect

The elections in Lebanon were a very pro-western surprise. People are calling it the Obama Effect.

…President Bush with his Axis of Evil bluster has been replaced by President Obama with his clear diplomatic message of resolve and hope.  It seems as though an American President may be affecting the Iranian elections again, this time positively.  From the recent polls it looks like Ahmadinejad is in trouble.   His main opponent, Hussein Moussavi, is a reformist who is running an Obama style campaign attracting a huge youth surge.   Moussavi stands for equal rights for women and decries Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy as “adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism and superficiality.”  In this election, Obama appears to be helping the candidate who is real relations to America.   The American President is a role model instead of a straw man.

Likewise in Lebanon.   As the New York Times reports, until recently it seemed as though the Iranian backed Hezbollah party would win the majority.  Now it looks as though the coalition that is more favorable to America will retain power.

Thou shalt not kill

Does abortion terminate a life? Without question. Does a woman’s right to privacy trump an embryo’s right to live. Sadly, it seems to. At least, it always has. That’s right. Always. Roe v. Wade made it legal, but abortion has always been available. Late term abortions, in particular. In fact, leaving unwanted babies to die by exposure was once the state of the art. A grizzly procedure that makes partial-birth abortion look almost humane. Which brings us to the big question. If  abortion stops a heart beat, is it then murder? If we look at the Bible, I’m afraid I would have to say “no.” At least, the God of the Old Testament––who instituted capital punishment for everything from killing a man to dishonoring your parents–– didn’t require the taking of the life of someone responsible for the death of a child in utero (Exodus 21). Which, at the very least, makes me reluctant to call our President a baby killer. Or abortion murder. However, most pro-life Christians are not nearly as reluctant to pull their punches. Some even pull the trigger. Which is how an abortionist came to die this Sunday. At his church. As he worshipped his Savior. As his wife watched on from the church choir loft. Murder. Plain and simple. And the saddest part of all? People who call themselves followers of Jesus are reading this and smiling.

The Unlikely Disciple

Being a disciple of Jesus means different things in different denominations. For Methodists it’s performing good works and regular church attendance. For Pentecostals its having a special prayer language and a gold-leafed baby grand. For Presbyterians it is possessing a large library, a iPhone with a ESV Bible app and a micro brewery. For the Baptist students at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University it is having a burden for the lost. That’s why every Spring Break they send a busload of smiling, clean-cut kids to Daytona Beach for mass evangelism. Last year, one of these tract-pushing, Bible-thumping, soul winners happened to be a unregenerate, left-leaning non-believer named Kevin Roose. He describes his baptism in Christian witnessing in his new book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University:

Around 11:00 pm, the Jesusmobile pulls up to Razzle’s. Razzle’s is a Wal-Mart-size nightclub with a squadron of earpieced bouncers manning the velvet rope and a set of revolving laser lights that overflow onto the sidewalk. We won’t be going inside, Scott says, but we’ll stand just outside the rope, witnessing to people waiting in line.

The first surprise is that there are at least two other groups of Christian evangelists here. One group, a youth team from a Florida church, has set up a shaved-ice machine on the sidewalk. They’re making sno-cones for the Razzle’s patrons, which almost seems like cheating. (Some Christians call this “gastro-evangelism.”) The other group, which is affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ, has done something truly brilliant. A well-funded national organization, Campus Crusade rented the ballroom at a hotel next to Razzle’s and set up a fake party inside, complete with strobe lights, a security team, and attractive models paid to stand outside the hotel and gossip loudly about the great party inside. When would-be clubbers enter the room, they quickly realize they’ve been duped — instead of bar specials and trance music, they get gospel tracts and a salvation message.

Our group has no such Trojan horse, just the same Way of the Master routine we used on the beach. Witnessing at Razzle’s, where everyone we meet is either drunk or well on the way, makes communication a little harder.

“Excuse me, sir. Would you help me with an opinion poll?” I ask.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Who is the greatest person you know?”

“Hmm … gayest person I know … I’d have to say Richard Simmons.”

Roose recently shared with NPR how his semester at Liberty opened his eyes to the sincerity and compassion of these young Christians. Roose never did open his heart to Jesus. But the experience opened something else. His mind. Funny how so many liberals can have such closed ones. There’s irony.

Empathy is a conservative value

Turns out Samuel Alito also has a nasty empathetic streak.

…Sotomayor’s critics are up in arms over the fact that she has admitted that her ethnic background has an affect on her decision making process. Who does she think she is? Well, as it turns out, she probably thinks she’s being very similar to Justice Sam Alito:

ALITO: Senator, I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point. … And that’s why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position. [...]
And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.

Git ‘mo money

The Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate have let their President down. They have defeated a White House request for money to shut down Guantanamo. Now Obama is making a speech, Cheney is making a speech and the barking heads of cable news are loving it. What went wrong? Fear for one. Close down Gitmo and the “worst of the worst’ will be moving into my community. Scary stuff. Lacking a plan is the second reason.  Obama was asking for a u-boatful of money without a clear plan. Sounds Bushlike, uh? But thirdly––most importantly––this administration has conflated too many issues into the symbolic act of shutting down Guatanamo. The issue of closing Guantanamo has become a statement against torture. Well, can’t we stop torturing detainees and still run a facility in Cuba? Yes we can. The issue of closing Gitmo has become a symbol of returning to the rule of law. Well, can’t we charge and try detainees without shutting down this facility? Sure. So why not try these baddies and keep Guantanamo open? Let’s forget the ugly symbolism of Gitmo and deal with the real issues. Then take that shut-down money and put somewhere it can do some good. You know, buy another car company or a bank?

Time to shut up

While Republicans are busy falling all over themselves trying to shrink their party down to the remaining six truly true-believing true believers. And while the former Vice President leaves his undisclosed location long enough to appear on every right wing news show on radio and TV, relentlessly hellbent on re-branding the party of Lincoln and tax cuts as the party of exceptional water boarding–Chris Buckley offers some sage advice:

One of the oldest rules in politics is: If your opponent is committing suicide, don’t interfere. So were I in charge of the Republican Party, I would send out a coded text message saying: REMAIN CALM. SHUT UP. THIS IS GOING TO BLOW UP IN THEIR FACES.

Much as I admire President Obama, I believe with something approaching certainty that his spending will bring this country to its knees. “Sustainability” is all the rage as a buzzword, but a $3.6 trillion budget is not “sustainable.” Doubling the national debt is not “sustainable.” Inaction in the face of $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities (Social Security, Medicare, entitlements) is not “sustainable.” This is math, not ideology.