The Administration

We are approaching the half-century anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in November 2013, and many serious students of that horrific event still doubt the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Definitive proof remains elusive, but reasonable speculations abound, and pieces of the puzzle continue to emerge.

The latest, a recent book by a retired CIA analyst, Brian Latell, Castro’s Secrets: The CIA & Cuba’s Intelligence Machine, contains “accounts of how Castro’s spies have carried out political murders, penetrated the U.S. government and generally outwitted their American counterparts,” according to a recent report in The Miami Herald. One dramatic item in the book is that Lee Harvey Oswald warned Cuban intelligence officials of his intention to kill John F. Kennedy “to prove his revolutionary credentials.” Castro knew of this, according to Latell, but did not order or control Oswald’s actions. Castro feared Kennedy was a threat to him and was “probably acting in self-defense.” These disclosures remind students of the assassination of the AP reporter who was warned by Castro shortly before the assassination that the United States’ plans threatening Castro would lead to the endangerment of the U.S. officials. Shortly before the JFK assassination, a CIA official close to the Kennedys was meeting in Paris with a former Cuban official whom the CIA had recruited to kill Castro. These new disclosures add to intelligence gathered in the almost half-century since the assassination of our popular president suggesting — without proving — that Lee Harvey Oswald might not have acted entirely alone.

In the latest blame game, Obama accuses Fox News of repeatedly implying that he is a Muslim, which has negatively affected his poll numbers.

The central problem with that allegation is that no one can find a Fox News program where such allegations were made.

This is consistent with the general pattern of trying to find a scapegoat for everything that is negative, while claiming credit for anything that is positive.

Yes, employment numbers are moving up, but there is some other sobering news: Unemployment is still 8.3 percent and will remain above 8 percent until Election Day; at the pace we’re on we won’t get back the jobs lost in the recession till 2020 or so, and we still have a vast number of long-term unemployed and the absolute number of employed people is still below pre-recession levels.

This is not the gaining-strength recovery of 1984 that propelled Reagan to reelection. Is it good enough? Who knows. I think it depends on many unforeseen factors: what become the issues the candidates espouse and real-world events between now and November.

If you are tired of the gaseous bigotry of Rush Limbaugh and the verbose inability of Mitt Romney (the "weather vane") to directly criticize Limbaugh, check out the hearing about the State Department budget from Feb. 29. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) exchanged civil and respectful words about President Obama's recent apology regarding Afghanistan. This exchange suggests why Ron Paul runs better against Obama than most other Republicans, why Hillary Clinton towers above all other national political figures in popularity, and why other Republicans could learn a lot from Ron Paul about how they could avoid the landslide defeat that might be approaching them.

The mainstream media is reporting that the stock market is rallying, because Wall Street insiders are encouraged and energized that President Obama will be reelected.

Come on, readers, and tell us if you know anybody on Wall Street that would buy stock because of Obama's reelection. The tax dividends on stocks will increase 300 percent if President Obama is reelected in November 2012. Why would an investor buy stock when his after-tax return is being cut from 85 percent to 55? Someone with a modicum of common sense would say the stock market is surging because they see the president losing the 2012 election.

President Obama is urging black voters to encourage their church congregation to support his reelection (not surprising). Why would a Christian church implore its members to support a politician whose views are antithetical to the church? Let’s call the roll.
 
Same-sex marriage
Abortion
Forcing churches to comply with contraceptives
Removal of “In God We Trust” from our currency
Not giving Christianity the same protections as Islam in government policy and free speech

Would America have social security without Roosevelt? How would the world have been different if Roosevelt had not supported the allies before America’s entrance into World War II?

If Eisenhower had not begun the building of the interstate highway system in the 1950s, would the American landscape have been very different?

What if Kennedy had not called Nikita Khrushchev’s bluff over the Cuban missile crisis? Could America have tolerated Russian missiles 90 miles offshore?

The president’s ObamaCare compromise is that Catholic charities don't have to offer contraceptives to their employees through their mandatory healthcare insurance policies. Instead, their insurance companies must provide employees the contraceptives for free. This is not a compromise, but a sleight of hand.
 
Who does the administration think is going to pay for these contraceptives? If they think the insurance company, out of the goodness of its heart, will pay out of profits, they are gravely mistaken. Instead, when the insurance company quotes a Catholic charity a health insurance policy that excludes free contraceptives, they will knowingly price it at the same rate as that of an institution that must provide contraceptives to its employees. If they are prohibited from charging the Catholic charities the same rate as other institutions and must charge a lower rate, then the insurance companies will pass the costs on to all the non-Catholic-charity policyholders. That means the rest of America must subsidize contraceptives for the workers of Catholic charities.

There should be and will be a compromise between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church about health regulations and contraceptives. But I disagree with my colleague A.B. Stoddard, most pundits and almost the entire commentariat class about how horrible this is for the Obama campaign.

One of the major political realities of 2012 is the overwhelming support of women for Obama and Democrats and the overwhelming opposition of women to Republicans. I had to laugh at a recent diatribe against Obama by my colleague Dick Morris that mentioned that Gingrich has a problem with the gender gap. Republicans who cheered Dick for that column will not give such an ovation to the part of his column that Dick left out. All Republicans suffer from a gender gap! In fact it is a gender canyon, a gender chasm and a gender solar system in favor of Obama and Democrats and against Republicans and conservatives.

The political tin ear President Obama displayed in siding with the women in his administration on new healthcare regulations requiring contraception coverage for employees of church-affiliated institutions is remarkable. And though it is early in the campaign and Obama will eat crow and retreat on the issue, he won't be able to cool the heat the controversy sparked — Obama will hear about this mistake from now until Election Day. Catholics and Republicans will see to it.