Two Clunkers by Obama Defeat From the Jaws of Victory?

As of Friday, February 10, 2012

As George Washington Plunkett, denizen of Tammany Hall, famously said, “Politics ain’t beanbag.” Indeed it ain’t.

An election year that was beginning to look like a long, tedious march toward the re-election of Barack Obama has at least become more interesting, if not substantially changed. In just the past few days, the president has made a couple of remarkable blunders with no assistance at all from his opponents.

First, he rejected the Keystone pipeline as a sop to his environmentalist constituency. This was incomprehensibly tone-deaf. First, the pipeline would have created somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 jobs, depending on whose numbers you believe.

Perhaps more important, the decision is counterproductive to the environmentalist cause. Canada is going to produce the oil by fracking, whether we like it or not; then, instead of shipping it through a nice, clean pipeline to our relatively clean refineries, it will be shipped to dirty Chinese refineries in oil-burning tankers, many of which will have single hulls — the kind that spill oil everywhere if damaged.

This decision has aggravated unions, conservatives and anyone unhappy with our dependence on Mideastern oil, all at once.

Then there’s the enormous recent flap over the directive that Catholic institutions include access to means of contraception in their health care plans. This has riled not only Catholics, who believe it violates a basic tenet of their faith and the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state, but also conservatives and anyone else concerned about the intrusiveness of the federal government.

It is also viewed by many as a first step toward eventually including abortion in health care services. Many people with no qualms about contraception or abortion are resentful of this action.

This debate has taken off in a way that was clearly unanticipated, and the administration is struggling to calm the waters with doubletalk about compromise.

Even with the election nine months away, these decisions will remain as issues.

Then there are the Republicans. Suddenly, pretty much out of nowhere, Rick Santorum won primary events in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. The anyone-but-Romney forces arose once again, and only time will tell if Santorum will go the way of Bachmann, Cain, Perry and possibly Gingrich, or whether he can reinvigorate his campaign and fundraising efforts. Santorum, by the way, is a Catholic.

All of this has taken over the news in a week following a good employment report, a week the administration would have liked to spend trumpeting improving economic news. That opportunity is essentially gone; by the time the news cycle calms down, the employment report will be ancient history.

In our interminable — or perhaps I should say permanent — election process, every event becomes political; there is no relief. That is why, with nine months to go, anything could still happen. In addition to the issues of the past few weeks, we still have overhanging us the payroll tax debate, the budget, the deficit and, on the international front, the European financial crisis, Afghanistan, Iran and more.

All these things are clearly in view, and for the most part, cannot be sidestepped. The president, as well as his eventual opponent, will have to do or say something about them. No matter how much they may wish to obfuscate the issues, they will not go away; and somehow, in light of all of this, next November we have to choose a president, and a lot of other people, to manage the government.

The course of the election may or may not be altered by any of these events, but they at least demonstrate that as someone, probably Yogi, said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Fred Wolferman lives in Southern Pines. Contact him by email at fwolferman@

sbcglobal.net.

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JimHeim 1 year, 3 months ago

A few things Mr Wolferman apparently doesn’t know: 1. Congress required the president to sign off on a project on a quick timetable without giving him the authority to waive the decades of environmental laws that must be complied with. 2. The route of the pipeline is yet to be determined? The people of Nebraska voted to prohibit the pipeline in their state. I’m sure you back them what with state’s rights and all. 3. The oil would go from Canada to a tax-free zone in Texas to be refines and shipped to China. Where is the benefit for us? 4. Re-routing the current pipe from the Midwest to Texas would reduce the supply of gasoline in the Midwest and cause a price rise. How does that benefit us? 5. 98% of sexually-active Catholic women use birth control methods the Church does not approve of. Where would the government get off forcing those women to violate their own values to conform to their employer’s? 6. With the president’s compromise, women get their contraceptives and the GOP war on women will have to look somewhere else.

If choir boys got pregnant, these bishops would be first in line to buy birth control pills.

dustyrhoades 1 year, 3 months ago

If choir boys got pregnant, these bishops would be first in line to buy birth control pills.

Zing!

geoffcutler 1 year, 3 months ago

Tasteful.

CC85 1 year, 3 months ago

The majority of employee's at Catholic sponsored and/or founded companies are not Catholic. One scare tactic I've seen from local Bishop's is the option to not "offer health insurance" to employee's. Reality is that decision is not within their power in regards to a Faith based organziation that does not receive funding from the Church.

Two Clunkers by Obama Defeat From the Jaws of Victory?

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“We need to know who they are and where they are. How can there be 8,000 crimes committed by over 100 offenders and there be no accountability?” he said.