Today Obama said he wanted the U.S. to stop using oil from the Middle East and Venezuela in ten years.

I'll stand with Senator Obama on this proposal if he starts by denouncing Joseph P. Kennedy II for doing propaganda ads for Hugo Chavez and saying that the objections to him come from hypocritical "conservative interests."

(It should be easy. Think of him as one of those $400,000-a-year oil barons.)

Surprise: Obama’s taken more money from major oil company employees than McCain

Obama: “America is no longer what it once was”

When presidential candidates answer questions from children about why they want the job, most will give an answer that uplifts the child and the candidate.  Not Barack Obama.  At a campaign stop in Elkhart, Indiana, a seven-year-old girl asked the Democrat why he wants to be President — and he told her that America has gone downhill:

“America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”

Sound familiar? Michelle Obama sounded similar themes earlier in the campaign:

“Sometimes it’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your ignorance. That’s America.”

“Let me tell you something. For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.”

Everyone feels that we can improve ourselves, but we don’t usually cast it in terms of the country no longer being what it once was. Coming from the Obamas, that doesn’t even make sense. They have talked about how difficult it was to break through barriers, not without some justification, to reach this point in their lives and American history.

Update: Maybe that seven-year-old was just another John McCain proxy.

Casey to get prime-time slot in Denver to appease Catholics

Yet a significant number of Catholics continue to support Democrats, even pro-abortion candidates.  I meet them in the parish and in my circle of friends.  Most of them operate from the same kind of denial shown by Douglas Kmiec, who now supports Barack Obama after supporting Mitt Romney in the primaries.   Kmiec makes his case to the Times:

Mr. Kmiec, a Republican who served in the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan, said he was supporting Mr. Obama because his platform met the standard of justice and concern for the poor the church has always defended. This year, Mr. Kmiec was denied communion by a priest at a gathering of Catholic business people because of his support for Mr. Obama. Mr. Kmiec said, “The proper question for Catholics to ask is not ‘Can I vote for him?’ but ‘Why shouldn’t I vote for the candidate who feels more passionately and speaks more credibly about economic fairness for the average family, who will be a true steward of the environment, and who will treat the immigrant family with respect?’ ”

Catholics who read the catechism already know the answer to that question.  While the Church does teach that we should help the poor, respect the immigrant, and be good stewards of the environment, those are not core teachings of the Church.  The protection of life, on the other hand, is a core teaching, and the catechism makes clear the absolute nature of that teaching:

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law …

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,“ ”by the very commission of the offense,” and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

2322 From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a “criminal” practice (GS 27 § 3), gravely contrary to the moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life.

The Church does not impose excommunication for disrespecting immigrants or a failure to pursue “economic justice” (a phrase which never appears in the catechism).  These could be sins and require confession and penance, but they do not rise to the level of excommunication.  And note that the catechism teaches that any kind of “formal cooperation” of abortion incurs this penalty, which includes performing, acquiring, or facilitating abortion.

Where does Obama fall within this argument?  He has fought limits on abortion, including — in one instance — a bill that would have required abortionists to save the life of fetuses born alive:

That is a tough standard for Mr. Obama, or any supporter of abortion rights, to meet. Republicans are gearing up campaigns to depict Mr. Obama as a radical on the question of abortion, because as a state senator in Illinois he opposed a ban on the killing of fetuses born alive.

Mr. Obama has said he had opposed the bill because it was poorly drafted and would have threatened the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that established abortion as a constitutional right. He said he would have voted for a similar bill that passed the United States Senate because it did not have the same constitutional flaw as the Illinois bill. Mr. Obama has opposed the federal ban on so-called partial-birth abortions for similar legal and constitutional reasons.

Not only does that put Obama on the radical Left on this issue, it puts him to the Left of his own party.  Several Democrats supported the ban on partial-birth abortions, and thus far it has not been overturned for legal or constitutional reasons.  Obama once famously called babies “a punishment“, and his track record on abortion earned him the endorsement of NARAL while Hillary Clinton still remained in the race.

Catholics can vote for whomever they want, of course.  Many of them will vote for Obama, but in order to do so, they have to reject the catechism and ignore the Church’s teachings on abortion.  A Bob Casey speech won’t convince Catholics who follow those teachings and understand the core nature of the need to protect human life.  Obama would do better by arguing that abortion is more or less irrelevant to the presidency, but given his ability to appoint pro-choice judges who will work to find more emanations from penumbras to justify the “right” to abortion, that’s almost as bad of an argument in this race.

More on the Catholic conundrum

Issues of cconomic fairness do appear in the Catholic catechism, although only in general terms. The teachings do not prescribe a certainty of policy as Catholic or un-Catholic. Paragraphs 1938, 1941, and 1947 emphasize the need for action by Catholics to reduce sinful inequalities between the rich and the poor, but generally casts this in rather stark terms, with little resemblance to the quality of life of those deemed poor in the US:

• 43% of the poor own their homes, and the average home is a three-bedroom house with a garage and 1.5 bathrooms
• Over two-thirds of households have two rooms per occupant, which belies the notion of overcrowding
• 80% of the poor have air conditioning
• Almost 75% own one car; 31% own two or more
• The average living space for the American poor is larger than the average space for all people in Paris, Vienna, and London, among other cities in Europe

Furthermore, the catechism talks mostly about personal work to resolve sinful inequalities, not the establishment of a government mandate that operates under a redistributionist policy.  It doesn’t forbid it, either, and that’s really the point.  Both parties want to help Americans live well, but have different philosophies on how to get there.  Voters in general should support the candidate who best represents their own approach to these issues, but that has nothing to do with Catholicism.

However, as I pointed out earlier, the doctrine on abortion leaves no room for such subjective application of other values.  Paragraph 2271 plainly casts “every procured abortion” as a “moral evil”, and reinforces that by stating plainly that this teaching is irrevocable.  Paragraph 2272 calls “formal cooperation” in abortion a “grave offense”, meaning a mortal sin.  Why?  Here, science and faith intersect.  Scientifically, an embryo has life at the moment when the cells divide, if not a few minutes earlier at conception.  Further, the embryo is innately human, with unique DNA specific to humans — and is therefore human life, regardless of its level of convenience to the mother.  Catholicism teaches that human life, especially innocent human life, is sacred and “must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.”

Anyone who formally cooperates in abortion, therefore, sins, and cannot honestly receive the Eucharist until they repent.  That conclusion is inescapable from the catechism in paragraphs 2271, 2272, and 2274, and explicit in 2322:

From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a “criminal” practice (GS 27 § 3), gravely contrary to the moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life.

Regardless of how Catholics feel about economic “fairness” or the Iraq war, that trumps all else for observant Catholics.  Formal cooperation with abortion means excommunication, which indicates just how foundational this issue is for the Church and its members.

Many Catholics maneuver around this by simply ignoring it, and they’re free to do so.  Membership in the Church is voluntary, after all, and people can leave the Catholic Church if they disagree with its catechism (and strictly speaking, they should do so under those circumstances).   However, it’s either a gross misrepresentation or self-delusion to argue that abortion is simply one issue among many for observant Catholics and that economic policy or foreign affairs can outweigh it.

Obama’s populist rhetoric returns

Yes, but what does Obama himself believe? “I think oil companies are amoral. They want to make as much money as they can for their shareholders, which is what corporations do,” he says. “The difference is the nature of the kind of outsized profits they make that may have no relationship to their investments or their production. The fact, for example, [that] the shortage of refinery capacity could actually increase their profits so the less they invest the more they make indicates that you are not dealing with someone making widgets out there.”

Obama circled back to our conversation when a questioner at yesterday’s town hall meeting asked why he singled out oil companies. This time his answer ventured beyond refinery capacity and widgets.

“So the question is, does it make more sense for the oil companies to pay for it or does it make more sense for the struggling waitress who is barely getting by to pay for it?” he said. “And the answer is, I’m going to fight for the waitress, not because I hate the oil companies but because I think it’s more fair.”

Oil companies haven’t built refineries in 30 years not because they want to keep profits high, but because environmentalists won’t let them build refineries.  Every time one gets proposed, a blizzard of lawsuits and regulatory hurdles follow, eventually making the construction of refineries impossible to justify.  Oil companies would much rather refine oil for consumption domestically, but thanks to these burdens, we now have to import — at greater cost — 20% of the refined gasoline we use, as well as 70% or more of our crude oil.

As always, read the linked material and judge accordingly.

Smearing McCain as a racist isn’t hitting hard enough?

Weisman and Bacon neglect to address why McCain and his campaign said that Obama had played the race card — a very strange omission in an article that makes Obama look reluctant to strike out at his opponents.  Obama on two separate occasions accused McCain’s campaign and the RNC of racism — once in June when he told an audience that they were planning race-based attacks on him, and once in late July when he accused McCain and the RNC of already attacking him on that basis.  Those two accusations prompted McCain to strenuously and publicly object to Obama’s race-card play.

In fact, had Weisman and Bacon read their own paper, they would have noticed that Dan Balz covered this issue this past weekend.  Balz reported that Obama’s campaign could not come up with a single example to support Obama’s contention that McCain had attacked him for “not looking like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills” or for his “funny name”.  Balz also notes that the Obama campaign did the exact same thing to Bill Clinton in the primaries, and it was Clinton who acted more like Kerry in the face of those attacks.

So far, most of the media has let Obama off the hook for his smear tactics against McCain, who has disciplined his own campaign and surrogates for even getting close to race-based attacks.  Casting Obama as the nice guy in this summer’s campaign is even worse than ignoring the reality of what Obama did to McCain.

For years, populist politicians have dragged oil industry executives to Capitol Hill and accused them of price manipulation. Every time gas prices increase, liberal lawmakers direct the Federal Trade Commission to investigate oil industry price gouging. To their chagrin, the FTC has never found oil industry price manipulation.

What evidence does congress use to back their price gouging claims? Try none.

Shouldn't we demand more from our politicians than unfounded accusations?

And just what do congressional advocates of a windfall profits tax consider unreasonable?

In the first quarter of 2008, Big Oil had a profit margin of 7.4 percent. Over that same period, the pharmaceutical and medicine industry earned a 25.9 percent profit, the chemical industry earned 15.7 percent and the electronic equipment industry earned 12.1 percent.

What about those movie theater refreshments? Four large popcorns and four large sodas cost $31.50. The total raw ingredient cost is approximately $7.56. That equals a 76 percent gross margin. Where is the political outrage over that figure?

Let's take a look at where each dollar spent at the pump goes. In the first quarter of 2008, the majority – 70 cents – was spent to purchase crude oil, 17 cents was spent on refining and retailing, and 13 cents on paying taxes.

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A young lawyer, a community organizer himself, sued on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) and won. The young lawyer was Barack Obama. Acorn later invited Obama to train its staff.

When Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago with Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, the Woods Fund frequently gave Acorn grants to fund its agenda and voter registration activities.

Acorn has been in the lead in opposing voter ID laws and other efforts to ensure ballot integrity. Acorn has been implicated in voter fraud and bogus registration schemes in Ohio and at least 13 other states. Acorn staffers will presumably be out registering voters again this year.

Advocates of the so-called living wage see their efforts as putting money directly into workers' pockets. But it merely transfers money from one person's pocket to another person's pocket. This is classic socialist income redistribution — not economic justice, but economic extortion.

In the real world, companies that pay workers more than the value of the goods and services they produce go out of business. Workers should be paid what their labor is worth, not what their lifestyle requires.

On his Web site, Obama embraces Acorn's socialist goal, pledging to "raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation to make sure that full-time workers can earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs such as food, transportation and housing."

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