Obama boxed in on birth control
By: Glenn Thrush and Carrie Budoff Brown
Politico.com
February 10, 2012 04:26 AM EST
It was no secret inside the West Wing that Bill Daley, a Catholic with deep connections to the church hierarchy, vehemently opposed the administration’s proposal to require church-run hospitals and universities to give their employees free contraception.
But it was the way he pushed his case that aggravated some women on President Barack Obama’s senior staff, according to current and former administration officials. In early November, without consulting them, Daley set up a four-man Oval Office meeting for himself, Obama, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Vice President Joe Biden, who both shared the view that the policy would sink the president with Catholic voters.
Obama, a person close to him tells POLITICO, hadn’t made any final decision, hadn’t fully analyzed the dueling arguments, hadn’t expressed a strong policy preference, and felt “mildly uncomfortable” being put on the spot.
On Jan. 20 — after a protracted internal debate over the policy’s implications and lobbying from allies in the reproductive-rights community — Obama approved the mandate, to the horror of the conservative Dolan and even to more liberal Catholic allies such as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.
(More here.)
Politico.com
February 10, 2012 04:26 AM EST
It was no secret inside the West Wing that Bill Daley, a Catholic with deep connections to the church hierarchy, vehemently opposed the administration’s proposal to require church-run hospitals and universities to give their employees free contraception.
But it was the way he pushed his case that aggravated some women on President Barack Obama’s senior staff, according to current and former administration officials. In early November, without consulting them, Daley set up a four-man Oval Office meeting for himself, Obama, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Vice President Joe Biden, who both shared the view that the policy would sink the president with Catholic voters.
Obama, a person close to him tells POLITICO, hadn’t made any final decision, hadn’t fully analyzed the dueling arguments, hadn’t expressed a strong policy preference, and felt “mildly uncomfortable” being put on the spot.
On Jan. 20 — after a protracted internal debate over the policy’s implications and lobbying from allies in the reproductive-rights community — Obama approved the mandate, to the horror of the conservative Dolan and even to more liberal Catholic allies such as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.
(More here.)
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