Do Roman Catholic Bishops Expect Catholic Supreme Court Justices to Reverse Roe v. Wade?

According to this article, the nation's Roman Catholic Bishops are considering how much involvement they should have in the 2008 Presidential campaign. The article points out how certain Bishops were involved in the 2004 campaign, with one Bishop announcing that he wouldn't allow John Kerry to receive communion in his diocese. What was remarkable about that statement was that there was no indictation that Kerry intended to take communion in his diocese, so his announcement served no other purpose than to indictate to his parishioners his opposition to Kerry.

What is even more remarkable about this article, however, is that the American Catholic Bishops are ignoring the one governmental body that has control over Roe v. Wade and has a majority of Roman Catholics. That body is, of course, the United States Supreme Court. Out of the nine United States Supreme Court Justices, five are Roman Catholic. They are Justices Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy.

So here is the question: why aren't these Bishops who were opposed to John Kerry putting pressure on the Roman Catholic Supreme Court Justices to reverse Roe v. Wade?

What is even more interesting about the Roman Catholic Supreme Court Justices is that all of them were appointed by Republican Presidents and are presumably Republicans. So it would seem that they would be the most receptive to the argument that abortion is a "fundamental" issue for Roman Catholics.

Of course, Americans are very touchy about attempts to interfere with the judiciary and might react very negatively to such an attempt. Which is, of course, why even those Bishops who were opposed to John Kerry's election might heistate to pressure Supreme Court Justices. In the final analysis, however, it seems hypocritical to criticize Roman Catholic Democratic politicians on abortion and ignore the fact that five Republican Roman Catholic Supreme Court Justices could reverse Roe v. Wade anytime they chose to do so.

Did Kerry Vote for War Because of Political Considerations?

Bob Schrum, the consultant who managed the Kerry campaign in 2004, and who has managed to lose every presidential campaign he has been involved in, is publishing his memoirs. In his memoirs, according to this Boston Globe article, he writes that Kerry was skeptical of Bush and didn't want to vote for the resolution authorizing military force. According to Schrum, he was talked into by Jim Jordan, his former press secretary and his campaign manager in the early part of the 04 campaign.

This whole story, if true, illustrates the problem with listening to others when considering what you stand for and what you support and don't support. Obviously Kerry's instincts about Bush and the war vote were accurate. He was right to be skeptical. He was wrong, however, to let Jordan talk him into doing anything he didn't think should be done. If he had voted his conscience instead of Jordan's advice, he might be president today because he would have presented a lot clearer message on the war.

Years ago there was a advertising executive who worked on Republican presidential and state campaigns. He said that when he first got into consulting candidates would come to him and say, "This is what I believe. I want you help me get elected." Then he said that candidates started coming to him and said, "What do I need to believe to get elected?" He said that was when he got out of doing political campaigns.

Such candidates are not only found on the Republican side as the Globe article shows. Too many Democratic candidates and Democratic consultants are in politics because they want to be "in politics" not because there are certain things they want to accomplish or certain ideas they want to promote. Apparently John Kerry is one of those candidates. Kerry didn't deserve to be president, but the we certainly didn't deserve to have George W. Bush re-elected president.

Check Out This Article on Huffington Post

John Neffinger has posted an article on www.huffingtonpost.com that should be read by every Democratic candidate and campaign worker. It is about how non-verbal communication influences voters, especially swing voters. He quotes from several studies that show that voters will pick someone they feel comfortable but whose policies they may not agree with over someone whose policies they agree with but whom they don't feel comfortable with or don't like.

The theme of his article is that Democrats and liberals have a hard time with this concept. They keep insisting that policies and programs matter more than personality. Meanwhile we keep getting beat because we nominate candidates whose policies we like, but who can't relate to the American people on an emotional basis. Candidates like Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry. The one candidate we nominated since 1980, Bill Clinton, who could relate emotionally to the American people won two presidential elections in a row, the first Democrat to do that since FDR and only the third Democrat to do that since 1860.*

Speaking of Clinton, he once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. The quote is not original with him, but you get the point. We need candidates who can emotionally relate to Americans, not just give them position papers.
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*The only Democrats elected to the presidency since 1860 were Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Cleveland won two terms, but they were separated by one Republican term. Wilson won two in a row, FDR won four in a row, and Clinton, as noted, won two in a row.

U.S. Attorney Firings Had Origins in 2004 Presidential Election

Politico, an online website devoted to politics, has a story that claims that the origins of the firing of the U.S. Attorneys are to be found in the 2004 Presidential election and even perhaps in the 2000 election. The story claims that the Bushies were upset in 2000 when people questioned the black robed coup that led to his becoming President. In particular they were upset that Democrats were arguing that had all the votes of Afro-American voters been counted, Gore would have won Florida.

In order to make sure that such accusations were not made after the 2004 election, the Bushies wanted to use the U.S. Justice Department to gather evidence of what they call "voting fraud", targeting organizations that were registering poor and minority voters. According to the article Republicans kept pushing this theme with the media, but could produce little evidence of such activities. The Bushies hoped that the U.S. Justice Department could provide such evidence. Such evidence could then be used to push for voting restrictions that would make it difficult to register voters opposed to Bush. Restrictions such as voter identification requirements, limiting the activities of organizations engaged in voter registeration, while, at the same time, making sure that such restrictions didn't prevent Republican allies from carrying out their own voter registration drives.

Those U.S. Attorneys who didn't get on the program, especially in "swing" states made King Karl and Bubble-Boy angry. This anger probably intensified when they lost control of Congress in 2006. Lo and behold, we get a bunch of fired U.S. Attorneys for what appears to be crass political reasons.

Bush won by over 3 million votes. Although Democrats may wonder about what happened in Ohio, very few people have argued that the popular vote didn't show a clear Bush victory. Ironically, taking action to avoid so-called "voter fraud" has led to Bush and Rove looking like they are manipulating the U.S. Department of Justice for political reasons.

Man Who Helped Elect Bush Now Says "Kerry Was Right" on Iraq

This is a fascinating story in the New York Times. Matthew Dowd is a Texas Democrat who spent six years working to elect George W. Bush President. He then spent four years helping him get ready for re-election and helped his 2004 campaign. He apparently now realizes that Bush has been wrong for America. He says that John Kerry was right on Iraq when he advocated a deadline for getting out last year.

Interestingly enough Dowd has a son who is now serving in Iraq. He is one of the few people that we know about in Bush's inner circle who has a personal stake in what happens in Iraq. That gives him a rather unique perspective for a Bushie, or in his case, a former Bushie.

He also faults Bush for his response to Hurricane Katrina and for not firing Rumsfeld. He portrays as disillusioned and believes that he has an obligation to help make things right, to "restore the balance." He doesn't plan to be involved in the 2008 race, but said that he likes Barack Obama because he is trying to bring Americans together. Be sure to read this article.

Bush Pulls "Swift Boat" Donor Before Senate Committee Vote

Bush nominated Sam Fox to be an ambassador. Sam Fox is a big-time Republican and is the former head of a national Republican Jewish organization. He is also a person who gave $50,000 to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" so that organization could run anti-Kerry ads in 2004. Today his past caught up with him. One hour before a Senate committee was to vote on his nomination, Bush pulled it because the word was out that the committee was going to vote against his nomination. What a difference an election makes. You can click on this entry's title to read the CNN article about the Fox nomination.