Obama Letting Corps of Engineers Drown New Orleans Again, Experts and Locals Say

Entertainer Harry Schearer, who has spent enough time in New Orleans since Katrina to consider it his adopted home, says in a CNN commentary that experts believe the Army Corps of Engineers is repeating the same mistakes that allowed their levee system to fail in more than 50 locations--and that like George W. Bush, President Obama is doing nothing to stop them. Excerpts from the commentary:

New Orleans, hit so hard by what so many (including President Obama in his Sunday interview with the local newspaper) still see fit to describe, mistakenly, as a natural disaster, is making remarkable progress, while the agency that so disastrously failed at building a protective system mandated by Congress -- the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- may be making some of the same mistakes in rebuilding that system. And the White House, for the second consecutive administration, seems not to care.

Me? I'm a humorist, a comic actor, a sometime musician-filmmaker-novelist-blogger. What the hell do I know about what happened to the city I love?

Since the levees collapsed, I've been reading the local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, watching and listening to the local media, which, post-disaster, have rediscovered their mission to make local news more than a recitation of the previous day's murders, car crashes and celebrity misbehaviors.

While the national media packed up and moved away after the initial orgasm of anger at FEMA, the local media reported something remarkable: The Corps was claiming that the flooding was due to the "overtopping" of its levees and floodwalls, while two teams of pro-bono forensic investigators were finding evidence that no overtopping had occurred.

As the Corps started denigrating these investigators, they kept digging, and kept coming up with the real story, available now for all to see (though all too few have) as the ILIT report from the University of California at Berkeley and the Team Louisiana report from Louisiana State University.

Their conclusions: The "hurricane protection system" built by the Corps had serious design and construction flaws, baked into the system over 40 years under administrations of both parties, that caused catastrophic failure in more than 50 locations under storm surge conditions markedly less than the system was advertised to withstand.

You and I, federal taxpayers, had paid to flood New Orleans.

Since the Obama administration took office, the Corps has: announced that one part of the new "system" will be built using a "technically not superior" solution, because of funding problems; and, defying a Congressional mandate, delivered a report supposed to offer a post-2011 plan for so-called Category 5 storm protection 20 months late and lacking a specific plan, offering only a menu of possible options. It's almost as if the Corps is inviting someone else to do the job.

Someone else can. A New Orleans architect, David Waggonner, has been convening a group of local architects and planners and engineers and their Dutch colleagues to mine the eight centuries of collective wisdom of the Netherlands about the challenge of living with water.

The resulting plans, published as the "Dutch dialogues," make for inspiring and depressing reading; inspiring because they offer a vision of a city that has stopped fighting a war against water and has learned to use water both to enhance value and to enhance safety, depressing because there is so clearly no federal impetus, from the president on down, to embrace such a new approach.

President Obama, who has mainly limited his comments about New Orleans to feel-good boilerplate, did pledge to make good on President Bush's promise on that eerie, floodlit night in a deserted Jackson Square in 2005, to rebuild New Orleans better and stronger. But he has yet to actively intervene to make sure New Orleans gets state-of-the-art flood protection and robust and timely coastal wetland reconstruction. Like President Bush, President Obama so far seems to be acting as if just saying it makes it so.

Even Some Gun Rights Advocates Question Brandishing Guns at Presidential Appearances

This man, who would not give his name, carried an AR-15 rifle near an Aug. 17 appearance in Phoenix by President Barack Obama.

On Sunday Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. seconded my August 13th thoughts on the fascist intimidation tactics being used by protesters of health care reform proposals--then focused on an additional tactic I've wanted to highlight anyway: people bringing firearms, including assault rifles, to the sites of town hall meetings and even presidential appearances. He said the tactics tell us just how much some very conservative Americans fear the change President Obama was elected to bring. Speaking of the election of the first African-American president, Pitts wrote:

If this was regarded as a new beginning by most Americans, it was regarded apoloclyptically by others who promptly proceeded to lose both their minds and any pretense of enlightenment.

These are the people who immediately declared it their fervent hope that the new presidency fail, the ones who cheered when the governor of Texas raised the specter of secession, the ones who went online to rechristen the executive mansion the "Black" House, and to picture it with a watermelon patch out front.

In the debate over health care reform, they are the ones who have disrupted town hall meetings, shouting about the president's supposed plan for "death panels" to euthanize the elderly.

Now, they are the ones bringing firearms to places the president is speaking.

The Washington Post tells us at least a dozen individuals have arrived openly--and, yes, legally--strapped at events in Arizona and New Hampshire, including at least one who carried a semiautomatic assault rifle. In case the implied threat is not clear, one of them also brought a sign referencing Thomas Jefferson's quote about the need to water the tree of liberty with "the blood of...tyrants."

It remains unclear...what the substance of the president's supposed tyranny might be.

When and if the implied violence comes, perhaps its author will explain. Meanwhile, expect those who stoked his rage--i.e., the makers of Internet myths, alarmist rhetoric and blatant lies--to disdain any and all moral responsibility for the outcome.

These are strange times. They call to mind what historian Henry Adams said in the mid-1800s: "There are grave doubts at the hugeness of the land and whether one government can comprehend the whole."

Our challenge is less geographical than spiritual... Such as when you look at a guy who thought it is a good idea to bring a gun to a presidential speech and find yourself stunned by incomprehension. On paper, he is your fellow American, but you absolutely do not know him, recognize nothing of yourself in him. You keep asking yourself: Who is this guy?

This isn't liberal vs. conservative, it is yesterday vs. tomorrow, the stress of profound cultural and demographic changes that will leave none of us as we were.

And change, almost by definition, always comes too fast, always brings a sense of stark dislocation. As in the woman who cried to a reporter, "I want my country back!" Probably the country she meant still had Beaver Cleaver on TV and Doris Day on Your Hit Parade.

Can one government comprehend the whole? It may be harder to answer now than it was then.

The distances that divide us cannot be measured in miles.

Of course the implied threat is not only to shoot President Obama but also for the fascists to have their way by violent revolution. The only consoling developments I've seen on that came in a report Tuesday from MSNBC that at least some gun-rights activists are actually questioning the wisdom of bringing guns to these events. Excerpts from the article follow:

As much as any issue, open carry reveals divisions within the gun-rights community, often characterized by gun-control advocates as a monolithic force that is led in lock-step by the powerful and well-heeled National Rifle Association. But you won’t find the NRA weighing in on this issue; the 4-million-member group did not respond to msnbc.com’s requests for an interview.

“They’re obviously avoiding taking a stand on this one,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the nationwide advocacy group for “sensible” gun laws. “It’s a no-win for them.” If NRA officials criticize those who open-carry near Obama events, they run the risk of irritating their “rabid membership,” Helmke said. If they support the behavior, “they’re going to lose all credibility not only with the public but with the elected officials who usually vote their way.”

Other gun-rights groups, however, have not shied away, offering a range of reaction.

Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, another staunch defender of gun rights, was not applauding. Gottlieb said the open carrying of firearms near presidential town hall meetings on health care “is not the time or the place for it. I’m not for disallowing them to do so, I just don’t think it’s politically intelligent. … I would like to see gun owners think twice before they go to a rally like that with a firearm strapped on. It doesn’t necessarily put our best face forward.”

John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, a social-networking Web site for gun owners that catalogs weapons laws across the nation and chronicles efforts to loosen and remove restrictions against the public carrying of firearms, praised the low-key response of the White House and the Secret Service to the incidents. But he also worried a bit about the actions of those who wear guns near presidential venues.

“I absolutely believe open carry should be legal anywhere that a citizen can legally be,” he explained. “Having said that, one of the things that I find a little bit less than perfect about the recent situation is not the fact that citizens were open-carrying, but rather that they were there as a form of open conduct to disagree with a political position that the president has taken, whether it’s about health care or the economy.” Doing so with a gun strapped on sends a “very mixed message,” said Pierce.

It is to say the least refreshing to see some voices of disagreement in the usually monolithic drive to bring guns into every nook and cranny of American life. It would be even nicer if these individuals who see the political folly of trying to intimidate the American public with guns would also appreciate how much telling lies about the president's plans for change fuels that political folly.

Health Detractors "Bearing False Witness," Say Obama, Columnists and Fact-Checkers

Reporters, columnists and independent fact-checkers are all but univocal in confirming what President Obama told 30 faith-based groups yesterday in a conference call streamed on the web at faithforhealth.org: the loudest detractors of the specific health-care reform proposals being considered by the White House and Congress "are, frankly, bearing false witness."

CNN said the groups had about 140,000 people on the conference call. Quoting Obama, CNN said:

He referred to some assertions as "ludicrous," and cited as an example rumors that the government is planning to set up "death panels" to determine the fate of the nation's elderly.

"That is just an extraordinary lie," he said, adding that it was based on a provision in the House legislation that would allow Medicare to reimburse someone who voluntarily sought counseling on how to set up a living will for the end of life.

"It gives an option that people who can afford fancy lawyers already experience," the Harvard-trained lawyer said.

In addition, the plan does not provide health insurance to illegal aliens, it does not represent a government takeover of health care and it would not lead to government funding of abortion, he said.

"These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation: that is, that we look out for one another; that is, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. And in the wealthiest nation in the world right now we are neglecting to live up to that call."

CNN was not alone in this reporting. In fact, reporters on all of the broadcast networks and the preponderance of the cable networks have said for several weeks that all of these claims are false. NBC said so explicitly in discussing the latest poll results, which showed, unfortunately, that large numbers of Americans have been stampeded into believing them.

Over the course of this week, several print columnists have also picked apart such claims, and found them bogus.

On August 17th Houston Chronicle political columnist Lisa Falkenberg reported on lies she had heard in person while attending a local medical support group in Katy. In a printed handout that purported to be a plain-language "translation" of one of the House health care reform bills, several of the bogus claims were represented as fact. Falkenberg traced the wording of the handout to "Peter Fleckenstein, a prolific conservative Tweeter whose blog, Common Sense from a Common Man, is filled with anti-health care reform analysis." She said Fleckenstein's claims had been checked by Politifact.com, "the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing Web site." Politifact found each of the claims false--most of them with no basis whatsoever in reality, one of them with a basis that Fleckenstein had totally distorted.

On August 16th Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. zeroed in specifically on the falsehood of the "death panels" claim. He said the conservative detractors of the health care reform plans had no real objections of substance, and so "the only thing they have to sell is fear itself." Some excerpts from Pitts' column:

So excuse me, beg pardon, but it would be really valuable to hear an explanation of the bill by those who presumably have read it, followed by vigorous questioning. Instead, the circus has come to town.

I refer, of course, to the chaos that has erupted at townhall meetings as Democratic lawmakers try to sell the bill. The New York Times reports shouting matches, fistfights, threats, injuries and arrests. Georgia Congressman David Scott says he's had death threats and a visit from vandals who painted a swastika outside his office.

Conservatives would have you believe this pandemonium is spontaneous. Truth is, it's about as spontaneous as a shuttle launch. The Times account tells us a banner appeared on the web site of Fox News host Sean Hannity inviting people to ''Become a part of the mob!'' A group calling itself Tea Party Patriots advises its members to pack the hall and "yell out.'' This is manufactured outrage.

And that's fine. If people choose to become part of a synchronized protest, they have every right to. Nor is there anything wrong with dissent. As many of us pointed out when George W. Bush's enablers sought to silence his critics, dissent is patriotic.

But shouting down those who disagree with you is not. Neither is threatening, shoving, hitting, painting swastikas or otherwise rendering reasoned debate impossible. That's not love of country, it's not dissent, it's not even civilized. It's boorish, oafish and crude, the rantings of people panicked beyond reason.

In other words, conservatives. OK, not all of them. But too many of them? Definitely.

By now, it has become reflex, this instinct of theirs to manipulate the debate and muddy the waters by stoking people's primal fears, whether of gays, Muslims, Hispanics or now, health care reform.

"I'm afraid of Obama!" screams a woman. And doesn't that just say it all? Doesn't that speak volumes about the intellectual bankruptcy and decayed moral authority of the political right? With apologies to Franklin Roosevelt, the only thing they have to sell is fear itself.

And no, that's not patriotism. It is the cynical behavior of people who have little faith in their ability to win the debate. So they pick a fight and try to win that instead.

Also on August 16th, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman took on the bogus claim that Obama wanted to turn American health care into a British-style government-run system. Krugman had some fun with the editors of Investor's Business Daily, which, he said

tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” because the National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”

Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, was not amused.

However, what Krugman found more entertaining was that none of the proposed reforms is modeled on anything like the U.K. system--even though our Veterans Health Administration is already run somewhat like it. Nor are they modeled on the Canadian and French systems, which leave "actual delivery of health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills"--even though that's close to how Medicare already works. The actual model for many of the House proposals, already emulated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, comes from Switzerland:

Everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies.

If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn’t have chosen this route. True “socialized medicine” would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That’s why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort.

But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.

So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

Krugman allows that "costs are running higher than expected" in the Massachsetts program. From other reports, that's more than a little understated. Indeed, whether other states have adopted models that are more affordable is one of the legitimate issues we should be debating--if only the shouters would stop drowning out all discussion.

It's Time to Tell the Fascists: This Was Never Your Country, and You Can't Have It Back

Health care reform protesters make their point outside the office of Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., who is black.

It's time we called a spade a spade. I realize those words are emotionally charged. But I use them quite intentionally. Why?

Because the people who are yelling so passionately against health care reform could really care less about the topic. If they cared, they wouldn't be so eager to shout down all debate. What they're really angry about is that their fascist vision of America lost at the polls. And what really frosts their watermelon is that they were defeated by a black man—who has no place in the America of their twisted dreams.

Occasionally one of them slips up and shows their true colors, like the Nazis who defaced the sign above in Smyrna, GA, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. What they painted in the dark gains crystal clarity in the light: this is not about health care; it's about making sure that our first black president fails, and that we never ever have another one. Only then will their true America be restored.

Vilifying the stimulus package wasn't working. As part of the saying goes, you can fool all of the people some of the time. But most of the people are keenly aware that the bulk of the current federal deficit was caused by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who simultaneously (1) launched their misadventure in Iraq, (2) let business charlatans go unchecked, and (3) pushed tax revenues to record lows. What the Bernanke-Geitner-Obama stimulus added to the deficit, just to begin cleaning up the conservatives' mess, was peanuts, compared to the trillions in damage done by the end of 2008. The American people grasped those facts. But still the fascists wanted their way.

They tried to get it by attacking Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. She had been part of an appeals-court panel who had agreed with the city of New Haven that it could not discriminate against black firefighters (a ruling eventually supported by four of the Supreme Court justices) and who had declined to apply the Supreme Court's bogus, sloppy 2nd Amendment decision to the states (even though the Supreme Court itself had not done so). And she had dared to suggest that the experience of a "wise Latina" might be just as valid in making judicial judgments as the experience of a white male (wise or not). But that got little traction. Even a few Republican Senators found it too much to swallow.

So then they joined the "birthers"—those odd birds who believe with absolute conviction that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, making him constitutionally not qualified to be president. They decline to face the stubborn fact that the State of Hawaii has sworn in public multiple times that it has the original of Barack Obama's birth certificate and has issued the same certified facsimiles that have been required in most states for decades. And the stubborn fact that local newspapers announced the date of his birth and his complete name. And the stubborn fact that multiple courts confirmed that documentation, and Obama's natural-born citizenship, during several years before the November election. And so they appear at town hall meetings, shout down elected members of Congress and everyone else, and proclaim with blood-curdling passion, "I want my country back!" Well, that didn't work too well either. Even a few conservative Republicans had the good grace to find it embarrassing.

So now the tactic is to bring down Obama over health care. The not-very-subtle message is that a black man insured by the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan does not care about the health care security of white Americans.

And so they tell outright lies: he wants to take away health insurance that current beneficiaries find worthwhile; he wants to abolish private insurance by making a public option compete with the insurance companies for services and costs (like the U.S. Postal Service competes with FedEx and UPS); he wants to create "death panels" to euthanize grandma and babies with physical or mental birth defects; he wants to ensure health coverage for poor blacks and poor Hispanics and illegal immigrants and reduce it for everyone else; he wants to explode the federal deficit to the point the future generations will never be able to repay it. And he wants to do all this because he's an uppity black intellectual who thinks he knows best and, as an alien outsider looking in, could never understand what white working-class Americans need.

The American people rejected all of this in the November election. The American people decided that Barack Obama was qualified to be president and best equipped to attack several persistent issues that stymied every president since FDR. We understood, when we had our wits about us, that chief among them was health care—that the current system is a sinking ship, getting ever more costly and dysfunctional, swelling the ranks of the uninsured every day, relentlessly on collision course with a future moment when only the very fortunate and the very rich will have any health insurance at all.

But the fascists still won't take no for an answer. They still want "their country" back. And so the American people now face a choice: did we mean what we said in November, or did we not? If we did, we need to say it again today: as a country, we have turned away from racism, and we will not turn back.

We need to support all who show a genuine commitment to salvaging the American health care system. And we should not be dissuaded by insurance companies who have duped us so many times, or the fascists who buy their propaganda.

Above all, we need to tell the fascists, if you don't like American democracy, find another home. If you insist on being loud-mouths who deny others' freedom of speech, we will provide you the aversion therapy of a jail cell. If you perpetrate hate crimes—like using racist, Nazi symbols to intimidate the rest of us—we will shun you promptly and insist that you be prosecuted as our laws require. We are the real Americans and you need to understand: this was never your country, and we will never let you have it back.

Obama Needs to Halt Democrats' "Liberal Suicide March" -- Before It Halts Him

New York Times columnist David Brooks, a conservative but a moderate one, says liberal Democrats in Congress, all-too-rapidly, are getting out of step with the American people--just as conservative Republicans did before the November elections. He suggests that unless President Obama finds a way to be "feared as well as loved" by Democratic committee chairs, his agenda will get nowhere and the voters will punish Democrats in the next congressional elections. First, some excerpts from Brooks' initial paragraphs:

It was interesting to watch the Republican Party lose touch with America. You had a party led by conservative Southerners who neither understood nor sympathized with moderates or representatives from swing districts.

It’s not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates.

This ideological overreach won’t be any more successful than the last one.

Brooks sees three phases so far to this "liberal suicide march:" (1) the stimulus package, which congressional Democrats used "as a pretext to pay for $787 billion worth of pet programs with borrowed money;" (2) the budget, which instead of "allaying moderate anxieties about the deficits...is expected to increase the government debt by $11 trillion between 2009 and 2019;" and (3) health care. He continues:

Every cliché Ann Coulter throws at the Democrats is gloriously fulfilled by the Democratic health care bills. The bills do almost nothing to control health care inflation. They are modeled on the Massachusetts health reform law that is currently coming apart at the seams precisely because it doesn’t control costs. They do little to reward efficient providers and reform inefficient ones.

The House bill adds $239 billion to the federal deficit during the first 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It would pummel small businesses with an 8 percent payroll penalty. It would jack America’s top tax rate above those in Italy and France. Top earners in New York and California would be giving more than 55 percent of earnings to one government entity or another.

Who’s going to stop this leftward surge? Months ago, it seemed as if Obama would lead a center-left coalition. Instead, he has deferred to the Old Bulls on Capitol Hill on issue after issue.

Machiavelli said a leader should be feared as well as loved. Obama is loved by the Democratic chairmen, but he is not feared. On health care, Obama has emphasized cost control. The chairmen flouted his priorities because they don’t fear him. On cap and trade, Obama campaigned against giving away pollution offsets. The chairmen wrote their bill to do precisely that because they don’t fear him. On taxes, Obama promised that top tax rates would not go above Clinton-era levels. The chairmen flouted that promise because they don’t fear him.

And so here we are again. Every new majority overinterprets its mandate. We’ve been here before. We’ll be here again.

Episcopal Convention Poised to End Moratorium on Ordaining Gay Bishops

Attending some meetings in San Diego, CA, I was pleased to learn from MSNBC and the Associated Press that the Episcopal General Convention, meeting this week in Anaheim not far away, appears poised to end its three-year old moratorium on ordaining gay bishops.

AP reports that lay and priest deputies to the convention had already approved an earlier draft of the new policy and that on Monday the House of Bishops "voted 99-45 with two abstentions for a statement declaring 'God has called and may call' to ministry gays in committed lifelong relationships." The House of Deputies is expected to give final approval by Friday.

Episcopal News Service seems to be trying to soft-pedal how controversial the change would be, headlining its report "Bishops affirm openness of ordination process."

Yet the AP coverage accurately notes that the moratorium was intended to respond to pressure from the Global South conservatives in the Anglican Communion to undo the ordination of gay bishop V. Gene Robinson in 2003. Ending the moratorium will effectively throw down the gauntlet to those critics and by extension to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who requested the moratorium to calm the controversy.

The AP report notes sardonically: "Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who leads the Episcopal Church, was among the bishops who voted to approve the declaration." As primate of the Anglicans in the United States, she can expect her more conservative counterparts to vent their dismay any hour now.

Climate-Change Denial Is "Betraying the Planet"--Placing Future Generations in Peril

Paul Krugman, who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, normally focuses on that field in his New York Times columns and as Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University. But in his June 29th op-ed piece he took aim at the 212 members of Congress who voted against the recently passed Waxman-Markey climate-change bill--not because he disagrees with their position, but because they have no scientific, political or moral leg to stand on. He also pointed out that the know-nothings wildly over-stated the economic costs of the bill. Some of his better paragraphs follow:

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe—a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable—can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.

As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves—the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation—may become annual or biannual events.

But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it—and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists—a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.

Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole—but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.

Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile, Thomas Friedman, another N.Y. Times columnist often quoted favorably here, had mixed feelings about the related energy bill that recently passed the House. His June 30th verdict: "too weak in key areas and way to complicated in others," and "appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters," but the bill still needs to be passed:

Why? Because, for all its flaws, this bill is the first comprehensive attempt by America to mitigate climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere.

More important, my gut tells me that if the U.S. government puts a price on carbon, even a weak one, it will usher in a new mind-set among consumers, investors, farmers, innovators and entrepreneurs that in time will make a big difference—much like the first warnings that cigarettes could cause cancer.

Ditto if this bill passes. Henceforth, every investment decision made in America—about how homes are built, products manufactured or electricity generated—will look for the least-cost low-carbon option. And weaving carbon emissions into every business decision will drive innovation and deployment of clean technologies to a whole new level and make energy efficiency much more affordable.

Teachers Should Have the Right to Say That Creationism Is "Superstitious Nonsense"

On May 1, 2009, a federal district court judge in central California issued a ruling that aimed to clarify what teachers may and may not say about creationism in public school classrooms. My initial reaction was that the attempt failed, because the judge’s legal reasoning was seriously flawed. Lingering over the ruling for almost two months and considering the few critiques that followed it, that conclusion has become even harder to avoid.

The case before the United States District Court for the Central District of California was styled C. F. et al. v. Capistrano Unified School District et. al.

“C. F.” was a student named Chad Farnan. He and his parents charged Dr. James C. Corbett, a twenty-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo with "repeatedly promoting hostility toward Christians in class and advocating 'irreligion over religion’ in violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause." The teacher made the remarks in his Advance Placement History class.

According to the Orange County Register, "Farnan's lawsuit had cited more than 20 inflammatory statements attributed to Corbett, including 'Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies — that's interfering with God's work' and 'When you pray for divine intervention, you're hoping that the spaghetti monster will help you get what you want.'"

Since Judge James Selna found nothing unconstitutional about 19 of the 20 utterances to which the Farnans took offense, advocates of church-state separation could just count their blessings and consider the ruling mainly a vindication of the teacher and of his right to speak accurately on religious topics.

The judge, after all, took pains to note that several of the challenged statements “do not touch upon or mention religion” at all. He even held that public school teachers have the right to offend a specific religious group: “A statement by a government official does not violate the Establishment Clause merely because a particular religious group may find the official’s position incorrect or offensive… This would be unworkable given the number of different religious viewpoints on various issues. This would also be directly contrary to the fundamental principles of the Establishment Clause jurisprudence because it would require a teacher to attempt to teach in accordance with certain religious principles.”

So what’s not to like about the ruling? The trouble is--as The Los Angeles Times agreed in an editorial on May 20th--that the judge found fault with a statement that really should have been protected under the speech and religion clauses of the First Amendment. And not content with that, the judge also talked himself into endorsing other statements by the teacher that seemed much more clearly an egregious assault upon religion. As a result, the ruling causes more confusion than it resolves.

The statement the judge found unconstitutional involved Corbett’s position on the religious approach of another teacher, John Peloza. In the words of the court decision:

“Peloza apparently brought suit against Corbett because Corbett was the advisor to a student newspaper which ran an article suggesting that Peloza was teaching religion rather than science in his classroom. Corbett explained to his class that Peloza, a teacher, “was not telling the kids [Peloza’s students] the scientific truth about evolution.” Corbett also told his students that, in response to a request to give Peloza space in the newspaper to present his point of view, Corbett stated, “I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense.” One could argue that Corbett meant that Peloza should not be presenting his religious ideas to students or that Peloza was presenting faulty science to the students. But there is more to the statement: Corbett states an unequivocal belief that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” The Court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.”

Strikingly, the judge finds it unconstitutional for a public school teacher to say about creationism what the federal courts have said! The courts have ruled, repeatedly, that creationism is a religious position that may not be taught in public school science classrooms. Driving that point home is the “legitimate secular purpose” of Corbett’s statement. And that purpose makes his statement a proper upholding of the court decisions against Peloza’s contrary behavior, not an “improper disapproval of religion.”

By contrast, the judge found no fault with Corbett’s lengthy diatribes on scientific reasoning and the Bible, in which the teacher distorts several Christian positions, then ridicules the distortions, with no evident secular purpose. The ruling quotes several of those statements:

“Um, see, people believed before the scientific revolution that the Bible was literal and that anything that happened, God did it. They didn’t understand. They didn’t have the scientific method. They didn’t approach truth. The explanation to everything literally was that God did it. And the ultimate authority, who was (inaudible). The ultimate authority was the Bible. And, for example, you have (singing) Joshua fought the battle of Jericho . . . [b]ecause the sun stopped in the sky. Well, if the Bible says the sun stopped, the sun must have stopped. Of course, those Chinese astronomers who were watching the same sun didn’t notice this phenomenon. But if it’s in the Bible, it must be true...So there you go. They believe the Bible literally... So, you know, understand that we have this sort of mindless centric notion, right? And these people didn’t even know about it – get it out. They didn’t even know about the Western Hemisphere. So they thought Jerusalem is in the center of the world.

“So – and presumably – and think how humbling it’s going to be, you know, when all these people who have been talking about Adam and Eve and creation and all of this stuff for all that time when eventually something happens, and they find out that there are people on another planet, six billion light years away, who don’t look like us, worshiping huge geckos. . . . You have (inaudible) people who are deep believers and find out that maybe we’re not so important. Aristotle was a physicist. He said, ‘no movement without movers.’ And he argued that, you know there sort of has to be a God. Of course that’s nonsense. I mean, that’s what you call deductive reasoning, you know. And you hear it all the time with people who say, ‘Well, if all of this stuff that makes up the universe is here, something must have created it.’ Faulty logic. Very faulty logic.

“[T]he other possibility is it’s always been here. Those are the two possibilities: it [the universe] was created out of nothing or it’s always been here. Your call as to which one of those notions is scientific and which one is magic. [Inaudible] the spaghetti monster behind the moon. I mean, all I’m saying is that, you know, the people who want to make the argument that God did it, there is as much evidence that God did it as there is that there is a gigantic spaghetti monster living behind the moon who did it.

“Therefore, no creation, unless you invoke magic. Science doesn’t invoke magic. If we can’t explain something, we do not uphold that position. It’s not, ooh, then magic. That’s not the way we work.

“Contrast that with creationists. They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”

Here, said the judge, “the Court cannot find that the primary effect of the lecture was to disapprove of religion.” Instead, said the ruling, “a reasonable observer would find that the primary effect of Corbett’s statements above was to distinguish generally accepted scientific reasoning from religious belief and to illustrate a historical shift from religious to scientific thinking.”

I think most reasonable observers would say that Corbett’s statements do considerably more than that. Corbett reduces religious positions on which there was considerable debate within and among various churches to a univocal position he characterizes as religious. Invariably, it is the most ignorant stance any religionist took. Then he belittles that stance to compare God to “a gigantic spaghetti monster living behind the moon.”

Is that not a pretty blatant “disapproval of religion?” And what exactly is its “legitimate secular purpose?” There were ways Corbett could have developed and conveyed his points with historical accuracy and constitutional precision. Unfortunately he did not do so, resorting to religious caricature instead.

So it seems quite clear that Judge Selna’s ruling cannot be the last word on this topic from the federal courts. If other judges try to apply his ruling, they will find that it creates more problems than it solves. Hopefully they will see the wisdom of over-ruling him.

In the days after the ruling, Corbett said publicly that he was considering an appeal. Although he felt mostly vindicated by the court, he was concerned about “the chilling effect” of the sole ruling against him. But so far I have seen no report that Corbett has appealed. Perhaps he concluded that he survived the experience about as well as he could hope to. Or maybe he considered that an appeals court might not agree with Judge Selna that the 19 other statements can all pass constitutional muster. So we are probably awaiting some other plaintiff to help the courts clarify how separation of church and state applies to situations like these.

Every Objection to a Public Health-Care Plan Option Is Nonsense, Robert Reich Says

Of all places. The Wall Street Journal! Today's has an excellent column by Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton admnistration and professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. Why is the publisher noteworthy? Because the column knocks down each and every argument conservative critics have raised against including a public plan as an option under health-care reform.

Reich begins by noting that projections by the Congressional Budget Office and others significantly overstate the cost of health-care reform overall, since they do not count the savings a public option would yield. Then he shows why each objection to a public plan option is nonsense. Excerpts follow.

...without a public option, the other parties that comprise America's non-system of health care--private insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and medical suppliers--have little or no incentive to supply high-quality care at a lower cost than they do now.

A public option would squeeze their profits and force them to undertake major reforms. That's the whole point.

Critics say the public option is really a Trojan horse for a government takeover of all of health insurance. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's an option. No one has to choose it. Individuals and families will merely be invited to compare costs and outcomes. Presumably they will choose the public plan only if it offers them and their families the best deal--more and better health care for less.

Private insurers say a public option would have an unfair advantage in achieving this goal. Being the one public plan, it will have large economies of scale that will enable it to negotiate more favorable terms with pharmaceutical companies and other providers. But why, exactly, is this unfair? Isn't the whole point of cost containment to provide the public with health care on more favorable terms? If the public plan negotiates better terms--thereby demonstrating that drug companies and other providers can meet them--private plans could seek similar deals.

But, say the critics, the public plan starts off with an unfair advantage because it's likely to have lower administrative costs. That may be true--Medicare's administrative costs per enrollee are a small fraction of typical private insurance costs--but here again, why exactly is this unfair? Isn't one of the goals of health-care cost containment to lower administrative costs? If the public option pushes private plans to trim their bureaucracies and become more efficient, that's fine.

Critics complain that a public plan has an inherent advantage over private plans because the public won't have to show profits. But plenty of private plans are already not-for-profit. And if nonprofit plans can offer high-quality health care more cheaply than for-profit plans, why should for-profit plans be coddled? The public plan would merely force profit-making private plans to take whatever steps were necessary to become more competitive. Once again, that's a plus.

Critics charge that the public plan will be subsidized by the government. Here they have their facts wrong. Under every plan that's being discussed on Capitol Hill, subsidies go to individuals and families who need them in order to afford health care, not to a public plan. Individuals and families use the subsidies to shop for the best care they can find. They're free to choose the public plan, but that's only one option. They could take their subsidy and buy a private plan just as easily. Legislation should also make crystal clear that the public plan, for its part, may not dip into general revenues to cover its costs. It must pay for itself. And any government entity that oversees the health-insurance pool or acts as referee in setting ground rules for all plans must not favor the public plan.

Finally, critics say that because of its breadth and national reach, the public plan will be able to collect and analyze patient information on a large scale to discover the best ways to improve care. The public plan might even allow clinicians who form accountable-care organizations to keep a portion of the savings they generate. Those opposed to a public option ask how private plans can ever compete with all this. The answer is they can and should. It's the only way we have a prayer of taming health-care costs. But here's some good news for the private plans. The information gleaned by the public plan about best practices will be made available to the private plans as they try to achieve the same or better outputs.

As a practical matter, the choice people make between private plans and a public one is likely to function as a check on both. Such competition will encourage private plans to do better -- offering more value at less cost. At the same time, it will encourage the public plan to be as flexible as possible. In this way, private and public plans will offer one other benchmarks of what's possible and desirable.

Stoking the Fires of Hate for Ratings and Political Gain Endangers Everyone of Us

Reflecting on the white-supremacist shooting at the National Holocaust Museum, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. had an excellent column June 13th on the endangerment public figures perpetrate when they stoke the fires of hatred for ratings or political gain. He cited several examples and the specific violence they provoked.

All that was missing was an example of the many acts of violence provoked by religious conservatives when they insist, long and loud, that every abortion is the murder of an innocent child -- regardless of Supreme Court rulings and state laws that say otherwise, the threat the developing fetus may pose to the health of its mother, or even the ability of the child to live if the pregnancy comes to term. The Pitts column follows.

''Them Jews aren't going to let [President Obama] talk to me.'' -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

''I hate gay people . . .'' -- Tim Hardaway, former NBA star.

''A Third World country.'' -- Tom Tancredo, former Colorado representative, speaking of Miami.

''She's frightening. And she's racist.'' -- Dennis Baxley, former executive director, Christian Coalition of Florida, speaking of Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

''Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'' -- Glenn Beck, talk show host, to Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim.

''Fifty years ago they'd have you hanging upside down with a [expletive] fork up your [expletive].'' -- Michael Richards, ''comedian,'' to an African American in his audience.

WASHINGTON -- I've always liked this place.

''Enjoy'' is not a word one uses in connection with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, but I've always found a visit here conducive to contemplation and reflection. So it is even on a fog-shrouded morning when you can't get in, when yellow tape rings off the entrance, police vehicles sit with lights flashing and armed security stands watch.

Last week, a man with a rifle walked in and opened fire, fatally wounding security guard Stephen Johns. Other guards shot the intruder down.

Authorities say the shooter, James von Brunn, was an avowed racist and anti-Semite well known to the pustular netherworld of white supremacy and to those who monitor it. He believed the Holocaust a hoax and America a ''Third-World racial garbage dump.'' He believed this, even at 88 years of age. ''It's time to kill all the Jews,'' he wrote in one e-mail. And can you imagine what might have happened had he managed to shoot his way past the guards?

It is jolting to recall that I once thought we were living in the last days of creatures such as this. My only excuse: It was the 1970s and I was young, raised on civil rights marches and Norman Lear comedies. Kids like me felt, with the offhand smugness of youth, that we were harbingers of a new world too enlightened to ever again hate people because they were. We were past all that.

Or so we thought. Because what a shock it is to wake up 40 years later in a world where the intercultural dialogue we thought we'd mastered has become a shrill circus overrun by haters and opportunists, a world where on any given day one might be assaulted by the casual anti-Semitism and homophobia that afflict so much of the African-American community, or the racist patter of a washed-up TV star who has mistaken freedom of speech for freedom from thought, or the gassy posturing of political and media figures who happily, disingenuously trivialize the rawest wounds of the American experience for ratings and political position.

We act as if it were all a game, as if it means nothing when people of position and visibility spew garbage, validating and galvanizing the unhinged and the disaffected who need little encouragement to believe all their problems are caused by Them. We act as if we do not toy with fire when people of authority claim white Christians are a victimized minority or Hispanics a threatening and faceless Other. We act as if we were not heirs and witnesses to a blood-soaked history that tells us exactly where this hate some of us so fecklessly stoke will logically, inevitably lead.

Hate groups standing now at record numbers. One dead. Ten dead. Six million dead.

I've always liked the Holocaust Museum because it is a stark reminder in an era where too many are in a hurry to forget. And so it is even today, even quiet and locked up tight. Behind yellow tape it sits, scene of a hate crime authored by an old man who thought he was great because his skin was pale. An American flag droops limply at half staff as if tired of waiting, waiting for the last days of creatures such as this.

Texas Senate Ousts Creationism Proponent from State Board of Education Chairmanship

The Houston Chronicle's Austin Bureau reported late yesterday that Democrats in the Texas State Senate had blocked Gov. Rick Perry's attempt to reappoint creationism proponent Don McLeroy as chair of the State Board of Education.

McLeroy's Republican supporters were quick to say that his ouster was retaliation for his self-styled 'Christian beliefs,' which for him include creationism and the conviction that the Earth is no more than 6,000 years old.

Democrats said their issue was not "evolution versus creationism," but that McLeroy had allowed his personal religious beliefs to polarize the board and to try to get the board to ignore experts' advice not only on guidelines for the science curriculum, but also on English, language arts and reading skills.

Despite McLeroy's attempts to lead the board in his direction, the board did vote in late March to stop requiring Texas science teachers to address "the strengths and weaknesses" of Darwin's theory of evolution. But at the same time the board also passed another policy that could be used to water down the teaching of evolution--"creating expectations that students analyze and evaluate such issues as fossil data and the complexity of the cell," but without any specific reference to common ancestry or natural selection.

Clearly the Senate vote trumpets the message that attempts to foist creationism or intelligent design on public school students--which the federal courts have already declared an unconstitutional establishment of religion--can have political consequences too, even in Texas. I think that's a very good thing.

Obama Nominates Hispanic Theologian as the Next U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican

The National Catholic Reporter says President Barack Obama has nominated a highly regarded Hispanic theologian as the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican--and U.S. Catholics and Catholic theologians think it's a superb choice. Several paragraphs from NCR's article follow. NCR's link lists 13 notable career accomplishments not duplicated here.

A Hispanic Roman Catholic theologian who was an adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign will be nominated to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, the White House announced Wednesday.

Miguel H. Diaz, 45, an associate professor of theology at St. John's University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, would be the first Hispanic to serve as ambassador to the Vatican since the United States and the Holy See established full diplomatic ties in 1984. Diaz was born in Havana.

Díaz, viewed as a dark horse candidate for the post, is the co-editor of the book "From the Heart of Our People: Explorations in Catholic Systematic Theology" and author of "On Being Human: U.S. Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives", named "Best Book of the Year" by the Hispanic Theological Initiative at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Díaz taught Religious Studies and Theology at Barry University, the University of Dayton and the University of Notre Dame. From 2001 to 2003, he taught and served as Academic Dean at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida.

“Professor Miguel Diaz is a skilled Trinitarian theologian who is passionate both as a teacher and a scholar,” said Benedictine Abbot John Klassen of Saint John’s Abbey. “He is a strong proponent of the necessity of the Church to become deeply and broadly multi-cultural, to recognize and appreciate the role that culture plays in a living faith.

Catholics in Alliance, a Catholic lobbying group, praised the Diaz appointment.

"A theological consultant to, and commentator for, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Professor Dìaz has always connected his impressive body of academic scholarship and intellectual rigor with an unwavering commitment to living out the social justice tenets of our faith," the group said.

Catholics United executive director Chris Korzen also issued a statement praising the Diaz appointment:

“Catholics United is thrilled to learn that Dr. Miguel Diaz has been nominated as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Dr. Diaz is a devout Catholic, a respected theologian, a leader in the Catholic Latino community, and a dedicated husband and father of four children. We have full confidence that he will serve our nation well and we invite all Catholics to join us in celebrating this historic nomination.”

The Administration and the Holy See share many common concerns, such as protecting the environment, fostering peace in the Middle East, disarming nuclear arsenals and cultivating international development, especially for the poorest nations of the world. Dr. Diaz’s ability to work constructively for common ground makes him a superb choice for this position."

Diaz was far from the most visible—or controversial—Catholic to campaign for Obama. Douglas Kmiec, a Catholic law professor and former Reagan administration lawyer, was targeted by conservative Catholics and denied Communion by one priest for his support for Obama.

The Associated Press reported that Kmiec, who was mentioned as a possible Vatican envoy, applauded the choice of Diaz on Wednesday, calling him "a gifted theologian and a natural teacher. And his love for the faith is unquestioned."

In a comment posted to the NCR web site, Carmen Nanko-Fernández, president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United State, said the association was "encouraged" by the nomination. "This nomination affirms the important contribution that Hispanics are making as part of the fabric of our nation," she wrote.

A statement on the academy's web site, achtus.org, praised Diaz: "Díaz embodies in his scholarship and commitments a profound respect for human dignity and a passion for justice. A Catholic layman, Díaz and his family are devoted participants in the life of the Church."

Vatican Newspaper on Notre Dame Speech: Obama Sought Abortion "Common Ground"

My immediate reaction to the success of President Obama's speech at Notre Dame's commencement Sunday? Exhilaration. A resounding Hallelujah that, for the the first time in a long time, the right-wing nut bishops--who so desperately covet a monopoly on American Catholicism--had been thwarted.

They did not succeed in bullying Notre Dame's president and trustees and faculty and students from continuing their tradition of cordially welcoming presidents of the United States, regardless of their views on specific issues.

They did not succeed in scaring the very popular president of the United States from accepting an opportunity to explain his particular position on abortion.

As significantly, they did not succeed in drumming pro-choice Catholics out of the church. The above cartoon aptly portrays what the result of that would have been!

Icing on the cake?

Reports today that L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily newspaper, had nothing negative to say about Obama's Notre Dame speech--and nothing at all to acknowledge that any American bishop had opposed it.

Instead, as several news outlets including Catholic News Service report, the Vatican daily wrote approvingly of Obama's efforts at Notre to seek "common ground" on ways to reduce abortion and his confirmation that enacting the so-called Freedom of Choice Act was really low on his legislative agenda.

The conservative Catholic blogs are aghast that some heretic has captured L'Osservatore Romano. They need to grasp what the Vatican daily has: the pope does not agree with them.

Amen.

Time to 'Defend' DOMA? Whitehouse.gov Removes Repeal from Civil Rights Goals

WorldNetDaily, edited by a founder bent on "taking back America" from the liberal elites, is no great friend of gay rights or Barack Obama.

It should come as no surprise, then, that "the fiercely independent newssite committed to hard-hitting investigative reporting" can barely contain its manic glee in reporting Unhitched! White House scrubs marriage promise: Obama's pledge to homosexuals disappears from official agenda.

The report appears to convey accurately how the White House website has changed.

According to WorldNetDaily, the Civil Rights page at whitehouse.gov used to say that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) needs to be repealed so that "the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions."

It now says more generically that President Obama "supports full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage." The Civil Rights page confirms that this is the current wording.

However, I suspect what the report has totally missed is the most likely reason for the change and its timing: that the White House is strategizing how to 'defend' the constitutionality of DOMA against a federal lawsuit filed against DOMA by GLAD "on behalf of eight married couples and three surviving spouses from Massachusetts who have been denied federal legal protections available to spouses." I covered the significance of the lawsuit here on April 28th.

The lawsuit puts a president who wants to repeal DOMA in the dicey position of having to defend it. Yet it gives the president a tempting opportunity: he could easily sink DOMA by having his Solicitor General simply concede in court that GLAD is right--that DOMA deprives legally married same-sex couples of the equal protection of federal laws that apply to married people. But Obama almost certainly will not yield to that temptation, because it would drive social conservatives back into the Republican Party at a time when he needs them to accomplish other important items on his agenda.

What he is more likely to do is have the Solicitor General offer a tepid defense of DOMA--which is, after all, about the best even the most dedicated government attorney could achieve--and let the federal courts sink DOMA on its own demerits. It would be, to put it politely, awkward to have a White House that is 'defending' DOMA still attacking it on its website. But eliminating mention of Obama's specific opposition to DOMA makes perfect sense if the White House thinks it can play into GLAD's hand. That would allow Obama to accomplish DOMA repeal yet divert conservative wrath to the judiciary.

If I am right about this strategy, it's worth acknowledging that it is not risk-free. The courts--and especially the Supreme Court, if it comes to that--may not agree that DOMA is as constitutionally bereft as GLAD and other progressives think it is. But the risk is probably worth taking, because it could accomplish Obama's DOMA objectives without putting other major reforms in jeopardy. If GLAD does not succeed, there will still be time to work on legislative reversal of DOMA down the road.

Most Catholics Are Not Listening to U.S. Bishops--For a Bunch of Good Reasons

Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, former editor of America (a Catholic weekly magazine) and currently Senior Fellow at Woodstock Theological Center in Washington D.C., posted an excellent commentary on the Washington Post website May 5th on why few Catholics are listening to the U.S. bishops.

Reese writes that "part of the problem is that the bishops stopped listening and teaching and started ordering and condemning. With an educated laity it no longer works to simply say, 'it is the teaching of the church.' This is the equivalent of a parent shouting, 'Because I said so.'

"The bishops must persuade and convince with arguments not by turning up the volume. When they resort to commanding and threatening punishments, people are turned off. Banning speakers, denying Communion, silencing theologians is a sign of weakness not strength. Censorship and violations of academic freedom come across as admissions that their arguments are not convincing and therefore the opposition must be silenced."

He also notes that conservative U.S. bishops are being egged on by conservative Republicans who are still smarting at losing to Barack Obama so badly. "They want the Catholic Church to be the Republican Party at prayer. Some bishops are falling for this."

Unlike them, however, the Vatican is maintaining very cordial relations with Obama--to the point that a recent article in the Vatican daily newspaper "stated that the first 100 days of the Obama administration have not confirmed the Catholic Church's worst fears about radical policy changes in ethical areas."

Connecting this with the recent conservative opposition to Notre Dame inviting pro-choice Obama to its graduation, Reese notes that the Vatican position is much closer to that of the 50% of U.S. Catholics who say it was right to invite Obama, than the 28% who say it was wrong.

Reese concludes: "The bishops who oppose the President's presence at Notre Dame are going to be embarrassed by the warm welcome he receives from the commencement audience. Every round of applause will be a repudiation of their condemnations.

"The bishops will also be embarrassed when Pope Benedict welcomes President Obama at the Vatican, or are all these people going to tell the Pope that he cannot talk to a pro-choice President?"

Give Immigrants Quick Citizenship for Buying Houses: Will It Really Fix the Housing Mess?

On April 17th investment advisor Scott Burns applauded the creativity of an idea previously floated in the Wall Street Journal in March: fix the U.S. housing market by guaranteeing quick citizenship to immigrants who buy a house here.

The original article, Immigrants Can Help Fix the Housing Bubble, was an op-ed column by real estate developer Richard S. Lefrak and economist A. Gary Schilling. They suggested that the U.S. housing market is currently over-built by about 2.4 million homes, and that if a million immigrants bought homes two years in a row, most of the oversupply would be gone.

As an inducement immigrant buyers would be given temporary resident status upon purchasing a home, then permanent resident status after five or so years, "if they still owned the houses and maintained clean records."

It was remarkable that such an idea would appear in the WSJ, a publication not usually associated with increasing immigration into the United States.

Burns titled his analysis "Buy a Home, Save America, Become a Citizen." For the most part he summarized the original column accurately. But he omitted a few key details like temporary resident status and permanent resident status. His summary implied that Lefrak and Schilling were proposing instant full citizenship for immigrant home-buyers:

"Reducing interest rates or resetting mortgage payments won’t reduce that surplus. The only way it will disappear is if new customers appear and buy those homes. The fastest way to do this is to offer citizenship to immigrants as a reward for buying a home in America. Here’s the formula: Buy a home. Save America. Become a citizen."

Evidently a few people told Burns he was not being entirely accurate. On April 28th he published a nearly identical analysis on MSN.Money. But this time he called it "Let immigrants fix the housing mess" and the summary had the following changes (in italics):

"The fastest way to do this is to offer green cards to immigrants as a reward for buying a home in America. Here's the formula: Buy a home. Save America. Become a legal immigrant."

The revision not withstanding, most of the comments on Burns' MSN article range from negative to hostile. Yet the comments are a useful catalogue of pros and cons that anyone concerned about improving the economy should take the time to read.