Such little pills, such big problems! (Madilyn Peiper)
Wow! Who’d have predicted all the wild over-the-top reaction to the White House decision to require institutions affiliated with religious entities — you know Catholic schools and Lutheran hospitals — to cover contraception as part of the basic health insurance plan they offer their employees. Certainly from Republicans and their news outlet Fox News. But from Obama’s cheerleading channel MSNBC? And the tepid editorial page of USA Today?
Certainly not the brain trust at the White House political team.
This has all the earmarks of classic political blunder from a group of people who live in an echo chamber of self-satisfied back-slapping. You can hear them just before this broke: “Hey guys we’re pretty amazing aren’t we? Our guy is back above 50% approval despite the unemployment rate being at 8.5%, the housing mess completely unsolved and a totally unfulfilled promise to ‘change Washington.’ Oh, and he’s African American! Damn we’re good.”
Instead they failed to see what a freshman Poli Sci student would’ve spotted — after a hard night of beer pong. A little preemptive framing would’ve gone a long way towards keeping this as just another Fox talking point. But no. Now they’ve tried to figure out some “compromise” that will save them a little bit of face, maybe, with some independents but do little to stop the litany of suddenly-devout Catholic cable news guests from screaming “War on Religion!”
Then again there’s a completely different theory making the rounds. Try this on for size: The evil geniuses at the White House purposely made this happen in order to help Rick Santorum get back into the hunt against Mitt Romney. By reigniting the dormant culture war with contraception, pouring gas on the fire with the Susan Komen/Planned Parenthood flap and then dropping a fortuitous lit match in the form of the 9th Circuit ruling on same-sex marriage, Obama’s minions made it possible for Santorum to surge and keep Romney in a bruising nomination battle for at least a few more weeks.
Check out the comments on any conservative blog and you’ll see it. Here’s one from the right-wing media monitoring site News Busters responding to a story about MSNBC’s coverage of the contraception hoopla:
Awfully strange that this issue, plan parenthood and the gay rights issue all came out at the same time and seem to energize the Santorum candidacy.
Damn! Those Obama guys are really good. With strats like that Obama should win in November by 10 or 20 points.
In truth this isn’t as big a deal as many on both sides are making it (what else are you going to fill 24 hours of airtime with if not ginning up controversies) and it will likely end up as a footnote in both the history of Obama’s first term and the 2012 campaign. Whoever wins the Republican nomination (Mitt Romney) will try and use it in the fall as part of a broader narrative about the “overreach” of government. Certainly it’ll help spark the Republican base. But beyond that?
Remember this election is entirely about one thing. If the unemployment rate keeps falling, grasping at the straws of a revivified culture war is going to make Romney look very 80s. And that’s not a compliment.
