Feminist Looking Glass

President Obama continues to try to avoid offending special interest groups rather than taking a stand he really believes in.  Probably the biggest example of this is his backing off of his promise to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, which has now devolved to trying to find ways to selectively enforce the policy so that some gays could serve in the military..

Now, for some reason, Obama decided to speak with eight religion reporters at the White House before his first meeting with Pope Benedict next Friday.  (I can’t think of any good reason to meet only with religion reporters.  I don’t know who the reporters represented, but it seems likely that there would have to be some preference for specific religions.  It seems perilously close to a problem with separation of church and state.)

During the meeting, “Obama sought to reassure Catholic health-care workers that they would not be forced to perform abortions and other procedures that violate the Church’s teachings.”  There is no reason to do this.  Shortly after taking office, Obama announced that his administration would be rolling back the “conscience-clause policy” that had been implemented by Bush and had greatly increased the types of people sho could object to performing certain types of procedures.  Obama’s proposal is now in the process of the review of hundreds of thousands of public comments on the proposal.

Thus, there is no need to reassure, for instance, the Catholic Church that Catholic health care providers will not have to perform abortions, sterilizations and other procedures that violate Church pronouncements and teachings.  In fact, Obama just confused the issue by saying that the new policy “may not meet the criteria of every possible critic of our approach, but it certainly will not be weaker than what existed before the changes were made.”  What is that supposed to mean?  Just let the procedure play itself out and implement the new policy.

As another example of trying to please everyone but instead just confusing everyone, at the same meeting Obama spoke about his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (that’s an issue for another time), “which has been negotiating between players on both sides of the abortion debate, seeking to find areas on which they can agree.”  This has not been going well because the groups have not been able to agree on the administration’s desire to include funding for comprehensive sex education and contraception in any legislative package.  That’s fine with me.  If the administration cannot get the church groups to agree, shrug it off and go ahead with the plan.  But instead, Obama said that he recognized that what his administration wants contradicts church doctrine “so I would not expect someone who feels very strongly about this issue as a matter of religious faith to be able to agree with me on that, but that’s my personal view. We may not be able to arrive at perfectly compatible language on that front.”  Personal view?  Again, what does that mean?  It’s not a personal view, it’s a policy that Obama presumably wants.  Just go ahead with it and don’t worry about offending church groups.

This is similar to Obama’s continuing efforts to try to be bi-partisan.  It has not worked because the Republicans have refused to cooperate on anything.  Just as Obama should jettison efforts of being bi-partisan, he should forget about trying to appease special interest groups when they are opposed to proposals he feels strongly should be implemented.

Moreover, his efforts are not appeasing the special interest groups.  At the meeting with the eight religion reporters, his statements trying to assuage the churchs on the “conscience clause” were met with both praise (“‘That’s the kind of statement from the White House that gratifies and reassures us,’ said Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, which represents 1,600 Catholic hospitals and other health-care institutions”) and criticism (“”Robust sounds good, but what does it mean?’ said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which supports the Bush protections.  ‘Without [the Bush protections], it is meaningless’”).