On Birth Control, Romney Mirrored Obama

UPDATE from CNN email (11:22, 2/10/12) -- rumors were right that Obama was going to cave:

President Obama today announced a compromise in the dispute over whether to require full contraception insurance coverage for female employees at religiously affiliated institutions.
Under the new plan, religiously affiliated universities and hospitals will not be forced to offer contraception coverage to their employees. Insurers will be required, however, to offer complete coverage free of charge to any women who work at such institutions. 

Female employees at churches themselves will have no guarantee of any contraception coverage -- a continuation of current law. 

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Vision to America didn't realize how right they were when they wrote this yesterday. Obama has flip flopped just liked Romney on the issue as now today Obama is now going to allow religious groups to opt out of a mandate which means it is not a mandate and is also going to change its rules for employers as well:

Faced with opposition from religious organizations, the Obama administration will change its rule requiring employers to offer free contraceptive coverage in their healthcare plans and will allow additional religious groups to opt out of the mandate, senior administration officials said today. President Obama is due to discuss the changes at 9:15 a.m. PST.  More soon at http://latimes.com. 

Neither man seems to have any core values that they will stand up and be counted when backed into a corner -- they both do a flip flop and cave.  I have more respect for people who stand or fall on their convictions even if I don't agree with them then I do politicians like Romney or Obama who put a finger in the wind to see which way it is blowing.

Written on February 9, 2012 by V2AOn Birth Control, Romney Mirrored Obama

Cracking down on contraception was never the way for Mitt Romney to ingratiate himself with voters in Massachusetts, even the Roman Catholics who mostly see it as a moral neutral. Now that that position is coming back to haunt Romney like the ghost of Christmas past, he’s taking cover with the religious right. And after last night’s surprising three-state sweep by social conservative Rick Santorum he’ll need all the cover he can get. 

Some Catholic leaders in Massachusetts are already (finally) speaking up against what they see as Romney’s politically convenient about-face in the emergency contraception debate. C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, told Salon he didn’t want to “let Romney off the hook because the initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from Romney’s administration”; he explained that there was a preexisting exemption for religious institutions already in the Massachusetts law that was stripped out on the advice of Romney’s gubernatorial legal counsel. “President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.”
Doyle said Romney was “very consistent at working both sides of the street on the same issue,” but his record on this has been “one of cynical and tactical manipulation.” 

Post Continues on www.salon.com 

Looks like what we had were religious leaders in MA staying silent on Romney when they knew the truth.  Finally they are speaking out what he was like as Governor.  He didn't take office until January of 2003 which is less than ten years ago but we are supposed to swallow the koolaid that he has changed his core values now that he is running for President?  Give me a break.  With all his gaffes when he pretends to be conservative, it shows he is trying to play the part of a conservative but doesn't have the core conservative values.

Romney supporters are all over the net this week trying to tell 'real' conservatives to sit down and shut up about Romney because he is really conservative.  Not working and frankly getting irritating to hear the Reagan 80% quote when I don't agree with Romney even 20% of the time.  In fact, I am not sure I can agree with him any more than Obama because I frankly don't know how Romney would govern.  All we have to go on is his time in liberal Massachusetts where he signed Romneycare into law bragging about it and Florida AG Pam Bondi's comments that she will serve on his healthcare task force to mandate healthcare in every state when he is President.

That is not conservative so no matter what he says in his speech I would hazard to guess that most conservatives will not buy into his speech.  We have all read the stories of the establishment telling him he has to hit a home run with this speech.  Be prepared for loud cheering from his peanut gallery he once again has bused into CPAC -- pays their way, for their food, and for the straw poll ballot which makes the straw poll meaningless.

All that money in spent on advertising and he loses all three states last Tuesday to Santorum and yet the establishment and his supporters are still pushing him as a the front runner?  When he most likely wins Michigan where his father was Governor, we will be hearing it all over again that Romney is the inevitable nominee but Michigan and even Arizona with the large Mormon contingent mean little.  Michigan has some conservatives, but we would bet they have a lot more moderate Republicans.  Hope we are surprised and Romney loses Michigan or Arizona or at least it is close.  Romney just does not relate well to regular people and a lot of his crowds come from heavily Mormon participation or people who bought into the koolaid that Romney is the inevitable candidate.

Stay tuned for the Romney spin from CPAC as he attempts once again to play the part of a conservative Republican.

Mark Levin: I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he

This is another take on the Beck speech this time from Mark Levin. We salute him for not attending CPAC when he discovered they were allowing the John Birchers to have a booth. We are having a hard time believing anyone would give credibility to the John Birchers for any reason.

There are members of the Tea Party who are very sincere in their beliefs and appreciate their attending the Town Halls and standing up. They have become engaged in politics and are working to make a difference.

There is another faction who are using the Tea Party movement for their own benefit including the Ron Paul bots, the Paul Libertarian supporters, John Birchers, Militia, and some radicals from the far right who will go along with these groups to get their way and power.

Mainstream Republicans need to continue to pull away from these fringe groups as they do not represent our values of smaller government, less taxes, and a strong national security. It is no different with some of the Democrats who are appalled by their Progressives now. Americans for the most part do not appreciate the philosophy of either the far left or the far right.

Mark Levin has done a great job of pointing out where Beck is all over the place and like Levin we have a hard time understanding Beck and his ultimate goal. One thing is for sure, he is not seeing things clearly when he can compare a Chuck Schumer and a Dr. Tom Coburn who are philosophically 180 degrees apart. Shame Beck cannot see the difference.

Mark Levin: I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he
Mark Levin Fan
February 21, 2010
Mark R. Levin

I was invited to be the opening speaker at Saturday's CPAC session. I had accepted but then, to my amazement, I learned that the John Birch Society would be one of many co-sponsors. This takes the big-tent idea many steps too far for me. So, I withdrew. Apparently, others were not so moved. That's fine. But it wasn't for me. Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater, among others, chased the Birchers from the movement decades ago. And they're not a part of the movement. So, to give them a booth at CPAC was boneheaded.

I want to commend Bill Bennett for his wise piece this morning on the Corner. I agree with him.

I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he. It's incoherent. One day it's populist, the next it's libertarian bordering on anarchy, next it's conservative but not really, etc. And to what end? I believe he has announced that he is no longer going to endorse candidates because our problems are bigger than politics. Well, of course, our problems are not easily dissected into categories, but to reject politics is to reject the manner in which we try to organize ourselves. This is as old as Plato and Aristotle. Why would conservatives choose to surrender the political battlefield to our adversaries -- who are trashing this society -- when we must retake it in order to preserve our society? Philosophy, politics, culture, family, etc., are all of one. Edmund Burke, among others, wrote about it extensively, and far better that I possibly can. But all elements of the civil society require our defense. Besides, why preach such a strategy when conservatism is on the rise and the GOP is acting more responsibly?

Moreover, when he does discuss politics, which, ironically, is often, how can he claim today that there is no difference between the two parties when, but for the Republicans in Congress, government-run health care, cap-and-trade, card check, and a long list of other disastrous policies would already be law? The GOP is becoming more conservative thanks to the grass-roots movement and a political uprising across the country, which has even reached into New Jersey and Massachusetts. Why keep pretending otherwise? My only conclusion is that he is promoting a third party or some third way, which is counter-productive to defeating Obama and the Democrat Congress. These are perilous times and this kind of an approach will keep the statists in power for decades.

And what of his flirtations with Ron Paul's lunacy respecting America's supposed provocations with her enemies, including al-Qaeda? Why should such a fatal defect in thinking be ignored? Do we conservatives agree with this?

Finally, Beck is fond of congratulating himself for being the only or the first host to criticize George Bush's spending. This is demonstrably false. I not only attacked his spending, but the creation of the Homeland Security Department, the prescription drug add-on for Medicare, his "moderate" tax cuts, as well as his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, "comprehensive immigration reform," and so forth. And I was not alone -- Rush and Sean did the same, for example. And as someone who fought liberal Republicans in the trenches when campaigning for Reagan in 1976 and 1980, I don't need lectures from Beck, who was nowhere to be found, about big-spending Republicans. But this is not about me, or Beck, or Beck's past drunkenness (which he endlessly wears as some kind of badge of honor). It is about preserving our society for our children and grandchildren. Beck spent precious little time aiming fire at Obama-Pelosi-Reid in his speech, and it is they who are destroying our country.

On as a positive note, I am personally happy to see that Beck has cleaned up his public act -- as best I can tell, no more boiling fake frogs on TV or pretending to pour gasoline on someone -- and the rest of it. But I do think his speech, which contained nuggets of truth heard before and read elsewhere, including on Rush's show and in my book and many other books, may have distracted from some of the more compelling and coherent speeches at the event, including Marco Rubio's superb speech. I fear the media will see to this. I hope not.

Source: Mark Levin

Bill Bennett: Saturday Night Beck

We are still stunned and frankly outraged from the Beck speech last night and very much appreciate Bill Bennett's take on Beck's speech.

We had our doubts about Beck sometime ago but some people tried to convince us that Beck was the man and was going after Obama and that was good. His outing of Medina who is running for Governor of Texas as coming from the Ron Paul camp and willing to listen to Alex Jones and 9/11 Truthers made us consider that we might have misjudged him a 'little.'

Now we have to wonder about that interview with Medina if Beck got caught unawares and ended up accidentally outing her as giving credence to the 9/11 Truther movement. We will never know.

Republicans have been standing up in Congress for all of us from the time the session was called into order in Jan 2009. How Beck can even compare them to the Democrats is beyond us and shot his credibility. We had heard he leaned toward the John Birch movement who Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley drove out of the Party and now it is time to do it again. They have no business at anything Republican.

Members of either party who go too far left or right are not helping this Country. Progressives and John Birchers fill the same space as far as we are concerned. Both groups are far from what the vast majority of Americans are which is center right. That's where America should be govern -- center right. Right now Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are part of the Progressive movement and out of touch with most Americans. We feel the same way about the John Birchers and Ron Paul Libertarians.

This article from Bill Bennett sums up what we were thinking of Beck saying both parties are alike. Not even close.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Saturday Night Beck
Bill Bennett

There’s a lot to say about CPAC. This morning the major papers are highlighting Glenn Beck’s speech. I like Glenn a lot and I think he has something to teach us. But not what he offered last night.

Analogizing his own struggles with alcohol to the problems of our polity and in our politics, he said, “Hello, my name is the Republican party, and I have a problem!” “I’m addicted to spending and big government.” ”It is still morning in America.” ”It just happens to be kind of a head-pounding, hung-over, vomiting-for-four-hours kind of morning in America. And it’s shaping up to be kind of a nasty day. But it is still morning in America.” And, again, “I believe in redemption, but the first step to getting redemption is you’ve got to admit that you’ve got a problem. I have not heard people in the Republican party yet admit that they have a problem.”

Glenn is among the best talkers in the business of broadcast. I am not sure he’s a very good listener.

First, there is a good and strong tradition in alcohol and drug treatment that personal failings should not be extrapolated into the public sphere; that too often when this is done, conclusions are reached based on the wrong motives and, often, the wrong analysis. Glenn has made that mistake here and taken to our politics a cosmologizing of his own deficiencies. This is not a baseless criticism; they are his own deficiencies that he keeps publicly redounding to and analogizing to. It is wrong and he is wrong.

Second, for him to continue to say that he does not hear the Republican party admit its failings or problems is to ignore some of the loudest and brightest lights in the party. From Jim DeMint to Tom Coburn to Mike Pence to Paul Ryan, any number of Republicans have admitted the excesses of the party and done constructive and serious work to correct them and find and promote solutions. Even John McCain has said again and again that “the Republican party lost its way.” These leaders, and many others, have been offering real proposals, not ill-informed muttering diatribes that can’t distinguish between conservative and liberal, free enterprise and controlled markets, or night and day. Does Glenn truly believe there is no difference between a Tom Coburn, for example, and a Harry Reid or a Charles Schumer or a Barbara Boxer? Between a Paul Ryan or Michele Bachmann and a Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank?

Third, to admit it is still “morning in America” but a “vomiting for four hours” kind of morning is to diminish, discourage, and disparage all the work of the conservative, Republican, and independent resistance of the past year. The Tea Partiers know better than this. I don’t think they would describe their rallies and resistance as a bilious purging but, rather, as a very positive democratic reaction aimed at correcting the wrongs of the current political leadership. The mainstream media may describe their reactions as an unhealthy expurgation. I do not.

A year ago, we were told the Republican party and the conservative movement were moribund. Today they are ascendant, and it is the left and the Democratic party that are on defense — even while they are in control. That’s quite an amazing achievement. But anyone who knows the history of this country and its political movements should not be surprised. America has a long tradition of antibodies that kick in. From Carter we got Reagan. And from Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama we took back a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, with midterm elections on the horizon that Republicans and conservatives are actually excited about, not afraid of.

To say the GOP and the Democrats are no different, to say the GOP needs to hit a recovery-program-type bottom and hang its head in remorse, is to delay our own country’s recovery from the problems the Democratic left is inflicting. The stakes are too important to go through that kind of exercise, which will ultimately go nowhere anyway — because it’s already happened.

The first task of a serious political analyst is to see things as they are. There is a difference between morning and night. There is a difference between drunk and sober. And there is a difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. To ignore these differences, or propagate the myth that they don’t exist, is not only discouraging, it is dangerous.

— Bill Bennett is the host of Morning in America, the Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute, and the author of A Century Turns: New Hopes, New Fears.

Source: NRO Corner