Category: Current Affairs

Bishop Olmsted an Evil Monster?

I thought I would take the opportunity to offer a few thoughts on some of the issues raised in the combox of my previous postregarding the situation in the Diocese of Phoenix.

A sizeable number of commenters strongly deplored Bishop Thomas Olmsted’s actions regarding Sr. Margaret McBride.

So far as I can tell based on the known facts, Bishop Olmsted had done three, possibly four, things regarding Sr. McBride:

1) He has contacted Sr. McBride to get her side of the story regarding the abortion she approved.

2) He has informed her that, based on the facts as he understands them, she has triggered the provision of canon law that provides a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication connected with abortion.

3) After the excommunication was reported in the press, Bishop Olmsted allowed his communications director to confirm the excommunication.

4) Bishop Olmsted *may* (or may not, we don’t know since nobody official is discussing this) have had a role in the reassignment of Sr. McBride to other duties at St. Joseph’s (the Catholic hospital where she works and where the abortion occurred).

I don’t see how anybody can object to Action #1. If a Catholic bishop is informed that an abortion has taken place at a Catholic hospital in his diocese, he is supposed to investigate it and find out what happened. Contacting people for their side of the story is always a good thing, so I don’t see grounds for outrage on this one.

Action #2 is something I think people may misunderstand. I’ve seen reports elsewhere on the Net where people are saying things like “the Bishop automatically excommunicated her when he found out.” This is not what happened. It’s a misunderstanding. He didn’t “automatically excommunicate” her. According to the Bishop, she “automatically excommunicated” herself. He informed her of this fact.

Canon law provides an automatic excommunication for a small number of offenses (e.g., abortion, throwing away the consecrated species of the Eucharist, assaulting the pope). When a person commits one of these actions (all things being equal) the person automatically incurs the censure of excommunication by the commission of the act itself.

If Sr. McBride incurred this penalty, it was by her own action, not the bishop’s.

Based on his reading of the facts, Bishop Olmsted concluded that she had incurred the penalty and made her aware of this.

That is not an act of cruelty.

It is a spiritual work of mercy because it gives her occasion to pause, reflect, and take the steps necessary to be reconciled with the Church (which is the purpose of excommunication to begin with; it is medicinal in nature, intended to facilitate repentance and reconciliation).

One could argue that perhaps Bishop Olmsted was wrong in his assessment of the facts and that Sr. McBride did not excommunicate herself. I’m not a canon lawyer, but depending on the facts of the case I can imagine a number of different potential lines of defense in Sr. McBride’s favor (i.e., that she did not excommunicate herself).

So can others.

Coming from very different places on the Catholic spectrum, Michael Liccione and Thomas Doyle both offer potential lines of defense.

As I am sure they can, I can also think of additional lines of defense they don’t mention in their articles.

But I am not in possession of the full facts of the case because so many of them are confidential.

Bishop Olmsted is in possession of the facts, and, unlike me, he is a canonist.

Based on what is known, I can understand why people would question whether Sr. McBride excommunicated herself, but we’re dealing with something at several removes, and we need to be cautious in making judgments about situations on which we do not have all the facts.

On the other hand, I could imagine one saying, “I defer to Bishop Olmsted on the question of whether Sr. McBride excommunicated herself. Let’s say that she did violate the law in this way. But I think it’s a bad law.”

That’s a position a Catholic (or anyone else) can legitimately hold.

Some canonists have argued that penalties that take effect automatically are a bad idea anyway. At his blog, canonist Edward Peters writes:

I have long held that latae sententiae penalties are unsustainable in a modern legal system, that their use inevitably distracts attention from the underlying offense and redirects it toward the complexities of the canonical legal system (which most folks are not prepared to assess), and that the 150 year trend toward reducing automatic penalties in the Church is good and should be maintained. Still other issues, such as authority to remit sins and sanctions, are unnecessary complicated by automatic sanctions as well.

And, one may note, the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches (CCEO), which is the equivalent of the Code of Canon Law (CIC) for Eastern Catholics, has no latae sententiae penalties at all and handles the same issues in other ways (cf. CCEO 1402).

So it is perfectly possible for the Church not to even have this kind of law—or to configure it differently so that it would have a broader or narrower scope regarding abortion—or to add new offenses (e.g., sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric)—or to delete existing ones.

All of these are legitimate opinions one can reasonably hold and discuss and advocate.

But in such cases, one’s disagreement is with the law, not with Bishop Olmsted.

He has to deal with the law the way it is, not the way he—or anyone else—might wish it to be, just as every cop and every judge has to deal with the law as it is in his jurisdiction.

So I don’t see grounds for faulting Bishop Olmsted for seeking to apply the law—as it is, not in some other way—to events in his diocese. That’s his job.

Action #3 (confirming the excommunication after the press began reported on it) seems to be a reasonable thing for a bishop to do, lest confusion result. The press has a hard enough time getting religion stories right, and it’s entirely understandable that the bishop would want to head misunderstandings off.

Action #4—which is only speculative, but which involves reasonable speculation—seems to naturally follow from the previous actions.

Sr. McBride’s position was “vice president of mission integration” at the hospital. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I suppose it means helping ensure that the hospital undertakes its medical services in fulfillment of its mission as a Catholic entity, in keeping with the Church’s vision of human rights, including and in a special way the foundation of all rights, the right to life.

If it is true that Sr. McBride had such a grave lapse of judgment as to approve of a direct abortion taking place in the facility then it is easy to see how this would be inconsistent with her job duties regarding mission integration. It is also easy to see how excommunicating oneself is inconsistent with a job involving mission integration.

Again, one could disagree with Bishop Olmsted and argue that Sr. McBride did not approve of a direct abortion (the kind that is intrinsically evil) or that for various reasons she did not automatically excommunicate herself, but those matters pertain to his judgment involved in Action #2. If one grants that he is right about Action #2, then Action #4 follows from it as a logical consequence, so there is no special ill will manifest in having her duties changed given the established assessment of her actions.

I thus don’t understand the outrage being expressed toward Bishop Olmsted.

If you want to disagree with him, okay. But do so with some reserve, because we are not privy to the facts of this case. We only know them partially.

If you want to disagree with the law and suggest what you think would be a better formulation, fine. But recognize that your objection is to the law, not the Bishop.

There is ample room here for Catholics and other people of good will to discuss and even disagree, but let’s do it with caution and respect.

I’ve got more to come on this issue, including the medical situation involved and the ethics of direct vs. indirect abortion, but in the meantime . . .

What do you think?

Grant Official Threatens Catholic Schools over Lesbian Case

Rainbow_flag(1)  Since Lord Alfred Douglas’s 1894 poem “Two Loves,”which was used at Oscar Wilde’s trial, homosexuality has been referred to as “the love that dare not speak its name.”

But that’s so 19th century.

We’re living in the 21st century now, so that was . . . like . . . 200 years ago, right?

Why, then, can’t Michael Reardon—executive director of the Catholic Schools Foundation—just come out and state the facts about a recent incident in the Archdiocese of Boston’s Catholic schools?

In a statement on the Catholic Schools Foundation website (.pdf), Reardon writes:

Dear School Administrators:

You may be aware from recent publicity about an exclusionary admissions practice at St. Paul School in Hingham, which does not receive support from the Catholic Schools Foundation. In light of those media reports, we thought it important to clarify the position of the Catholic Schools Foundation – – namely, that no school that promotes an exclusionary admissions policy or practice will be considered for support.

We believe a policy or practice that denies admission to students in such a manner as occurred at St. Paul’s is at odds with our values as a Foundation, the intentions of our donors, and ultimately with Gospel teaching. Our concern is the education of young people. We will not fund any school that that treats students and families in such a manner. This policy has been unchanged since our founding in 1983.

We are proud that Catholic schools are known for being welcoming communities for all students. So although this incident is disturbing, we know that it is isolated, not a policy of the Archdiocese, or indicative generally of the Catholic schools of the Archdiocese. Know that we appreciate all you do to make your schools places where all feel welcome.

Please contact me at 617-778-5981 if you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance to you.

With hope for the students we serve and the future of Catholic education, I am

Sincerely yours,

Michael B. Reardon
Executive Director

From Reardon’s letter, you’d have no idea whatsoever was at issue in the St. Paul School case. He vaguely refers to “an exclusionary admissions practice” and ominously warns that “no school that promotes an exclusionary admissions policy or practice will be considered for support.” He speaks opaquely of “a policy or practice that denies admission to students in such a manner as occurred at St. Paul’s.” He uses lofty rhetoric about the values of the foundation, its donors, and “Gospel teaching.” He warns that they will not fund “any school that treats students and families in such a manner.” He uses touchie-feelie language about Catholic schools being “welcoming communities,” “where all feel welcome.” And he says that the St. Paul School incident “disturbing.”

So disturbing, apparently, that he can’t even speak forthrightly about the subject. The whole thing has to be shrouded with indirectness, shielded from frank discussion, and wrapped in comforting PC rhetoric.

It certainly isn’t the case that Reardon would want Catholic schools to accept any student whatsoever. If Catholic schools set no limits whatsoever on enrollment, the sheer volume of potential students would overtax the schools’ resources to the point that they couldn’t fulfill their mission. Schools must for economic reasons alone have “exclusionary admissions practices.” Similarly, some students are so disruptive that they cannot function in a normal classroom environment. Some students, frankly, belong in the juvenile justice system. So it isn’t a question of whether Catholic schools should have “exclusionary admissions practices.” The question is which exclusionary admissions practices they should have, and Reardon knows that full well. He just isn’t being forthright about the kind of exclusionary policy he has in mind.

Mr. Reardon may not understand the importance of being earnest, but let’s look at what he might have said had he chosen to be frank.

Dear School Administrators:

You may be aware from recent publicity that St. Paul School in Hingham has declined to enroll an eight-year old boy who has two lesbian “mothers.” St. Paul’s School does not receive support from the Catholic Schools Foundation, so we have no leverage over them, the way we do you. In light of the media reports, we thought it important to clarify the position of the Catholic Schools Foundation so that none of you get the idea of copying St. Paul’s example. Consider this letter a shot across your bow. Our policy is that no school will be considered for support if it either by policy or in practice declines enrollment for students with same-sex “parents.”

It does not matter how disruptive a situation such enrollments would create. It does not matter how difficult a position it would put the thus-enrolled children in. It does not matter how it would put pressure on teachers not to fully and vigorously proclaim Church’s teaching about marriage. It does not matter what other parents in the school might say about the way their children should be educated. None of these things count. What matters is that these children be admitted. This is the sine qua non.

We believe a policy or practice that denies admission to students with openly homosexual parents is at odds with our values as a Foundation, the intentions of our donors, and ultimately with Gospel teaching. Gospel teaching requires that we turn a blind eye to all the concerns named in the previous paragraph. The necessity of admitting children with openly homosexual parents trumps them all. There can be no rational disagreement on this point, and if you do disagree, you are opposing Gospel teaching.

Our concern is the education of young people. We will not fund any school that that treats students and families (note that I am classifying two homosexuals and a child as a family without qualification) in such a manner. You heard me right. We are so concerned with the education of young people that we will deny funding to all the other students in your school if even one child is not enrolled because he has openly homosexual parents. The need of the one outweighs the needs of the many. We care more about providing a Catholic education for this one student more than providing Catholic education for all the other students we would otherwise provide assistance to. This tells you what our values are. We will use financial scorched-earth tactics against any school that disagrees with us, even at the urging of the parents whose children attend the school. This policy has been unchanged since our founding in 1983. [Really? They would have yanked funds in 1983 over this issue?—ja]

We are proud that Catholic schools are known for being welcoming communities for all students except the ones who must be denied enrollment for various rational reasons that I am ignoring here. So although this incident is disturbing to politically correct sensibilities, we are thankful that it is isolated, not a policy of the Archdiocese, or indicative generally of the Catholic schools of the Archdiocese. Know that we appreciate all you do to make your schools places where all, including open and active homosexual partners but not including parents who would disagree with us, will feel welcome. And remember that if you fail in such efforts, we will withdraw all financial support from your school and the other students it has. Consider them financial hostages to this issue.

Please contact me at 617-778-5981 if you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance to you.

With hope for the students we serve and the future of Catholic education, I am

Sincerely yours,

Michael B. Reardon
Executive Director

Ahhhhhhhh.

Isn’t a little forthrightness refreshing?

What do you think?

A Week Ago Today . . .

Aquake . . . I mean, not a week ago this minute or this hour, but a week ago today, I was in the 7.2 earthquake originating in northern Mexico, south of Imperial County, California.

I my area, it was felt with an intensity on the modified Mercalli scale of IV-V. Everybody (indoors and out) felt motion, but things weren't destroyed.

While I've felt small jolts from time to time since moving to California (including while doing Catholic Answers Live–and commenting about it on air!), it brought to mind the previous major earthquake I was in.

That was the Northridge quake, from 1994. 

Though I had friends in the L.A. area, like Ken Hensley, were are much, MUCH closer to the epicenter, in my area it was again felt as a IV-V quake. Things shook. Everyone felt it. Not much was destroyed. Parked cars rocked. Sleeping people were awakened.

Including me.

At the time, I was sleeping in the water bed I still had from when I was married. (My wife had chronic sciatica problems, which the bed helped with, and I kept it for a time after she died in 1992 and after my 1993 move to California.)

In January 1994, I woke up rocking from side to side, with the water sloshing around and the car alarms going off in the parking lot of the apartment complex where I lived.

I didn't know about getting under the door frame at the time (a concept I later learned from the Animaniacs–which may not be such a great idea after all, from what I've heard lately).

But the Animaniacs made this song out of it (which I can sing from memory–or at least the version appearing on one of the CDs they made) . . .

Love the rhymes! ("The dirt, the rocks, and all those aftershocks. It's just a planet moving granite several city blocks.)

What Would You Like To Say . . .

Bart_stupak Bart Stupak has finally gotten (or reacquired) a spine!

If the reporting from Politico is right, he’s finally stood up to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama!

He’s un-caved!

A little too late.

He’s decided, you see, not to run for re-election.

Politico reports:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who had a central role in the health reform fight as the leader of anti-abortion Democrats, plans to announce Friday that he will not run for reelection, a Democratic official said. Without Stupak on the ballot, the seat becomes an immediate pickup opportunity for Republicans.

President Barack Obama called Stupak on Wednesday and asked him not to retire. Stupak, 58, also resisted entreaties from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the dean of the Wolverine State delegation.

Now get this:

Friends said Stupak was not leaving because of the health fight but because of the exertion that would be required to hold his sprawling Upper Peninsula District.

Uh . . . right.

This guy is waaaay incumbent. He’s been in the House for 18 years (9 terms) and has never won with less than 57% of the vote—just three percent from landslide territory.

So tell us how this year it is different and it’s become much more difficult—but not because of the health care fight.

This year was shaping up to be a different story, with Stupak becoming a leading target on both his left and right flanks. Abortion rights supporters were rallying behind Charlevoix County Commissioner Connie Saltonstall after Stupak insisted on pro-life language being inserted in the health care legislation.

Er . . . so I guess he’s facing a fierce challenge from the other side—the right—that isn’t due to the health care fight. Right?

And Republicans have rallied around surgeon Dan Benishek, a Tea Party favorite, who received very little attention until Stupak voted for the health care legislation even without receiving anti-abortion language in the bill itself. Benishek is expected to raise over $100,000 this quarter, according to GOP sources, a large amount for a first-time candidate who had virtually no campaign infrastructure before Stupak received national attention over his health care positioning.

Urm. . . . okay! So Bart “Pro-Lifers like the Catholic bishops are hypocrites” Stupak plans to leave, but it’s not because of his EPIC FAIL in the healthcare fight.

Not because of that at all.

So now that we have that settled, I just have one question.

What’s your goodbye message to Mr. Stupak?

Maybe You Can Answer This Question . . .

The_PriestThere’s an aspect to the current press coverage of Pope Benedict that I don’t understand.

Yes, I know why they’re doing it. Because they need scandal to sell papers. Because they have antipathy towards the Catholic Church (except when it is in their interests no to, like when Pope Benedict visited America). And, yes, because they don’t understand what they’re reporting on.

But really.

Why are they so laser-focused on the issue of laicization or “defrocking”?

Remember Jesus’ parable about the two sons, one of whom said he would go work in the field but didn’t and the other of whom said he wouldn’t go work in the field but did?

The first son was right on symbol but wrong on substance. The second was wrong on symbol but right on substance.

Of course, the best thing is to be right on symbol and right on substance, but if it’s a choice between one of the two, Jesus clearly indicated what was more important: substance over symbol.

How does that apply to the current scandal?

If you look at the American cases that the press is currently hyperventilating about, they had all been removed from pastoral ministry long before the cases ever got to Cardinal Ratzinger’s department at the Vatican.

These weren’t cases where the priests’ bishops were moving them around in a kind of shell game, keeping them with regular access to children. They had been removed from that situation (though the Wisconsin priest, Lawrence Murphy, apparently still had some contact with the Milwaukee deaf community—which Archbishop Bertone at the CDF insisted be stopped at once).

So—in terms of substance—the Church had already largely dealt with the matter. It had deprived these priests of the pastoral assignments that put them in contact with potential victims.

Dismissing them from the clerical state—laicizing or defrocking them—would would be a less urgent matter, and one that is in significant measure symbolic (since even a laicized priest retains the powers he gained from his ordination, even if he is only allowed to exercise a few of them and only in emergency circumstances, like hearing a deathbed confession).

Yes, there are other canonical consequences—ones that would be painful to the priest (assuming he was interested in remaining a priest), like not being able to lawfully celebrate Mass any more, even in private (which assumes he cares enough about the Church’s rules to obey such a stricture; some don’t, such as LifeTeen founder Dale Fushek, who set up his own independent worship center once he was laicized).

While the Church obviously sees value in laicizing gravely errant priests (or the procedure wouldn’t be on the books), the burning issue for people concerned about children should not be “How quickly was this guy laicized?” but “How quickly was this guy removed from pastoral ministry?”

My suspicion is that the press is glossing over this issue for the reasons stated above (greed, malice, ignorance), but they seem unduly focused on the question of how quickly Cardinal Ratzinger’s office moved with respect to the laicization of priests whose bishops had already (before the case got to the CDF) taken measures to keep them from harming others.

I think that by focusing on the laicization issue the press is positively misleading the public by conveying the impression that the Church hadn’t yanked these guys from their pastoral assignments. My fear is that a lot of people will walk away with the totally false impression that unless a priest has been “defrocked” then the Church is allowing him to maintain regular contact with victims through a pastoral assignment, and that by not laicizing them at once Cardinal Ratzinger was turning a blind eye and allowing them to go on raping children in parishes with impunity. (Indeed, that seems to be exactly what Andrew Sullivan has been claiming.)

But that’s not the case—not even with Lawrence Murphy, who as far as was known when his case came up in the 90s (and as far as is known today) hadn’t molested anyone in two decades.

So why rage over how fast or whether these men were laicized if their bishops had already taken steps to stop the threat they posed? (Steps that in the Murphy case the CDF said had to be strengthened at once.)

I’m not saying that there isn’t room for criticism here, even vigorous criticism, or that these guys shouldn’t have been laicized, or that the CDF shouldn’t have acted more swiftly than it did.

Criticism—even vigorous criticism—is one thing, but blind, seething rage is another.

Blind, seething rage would be a more appropriate response to keeping these monsters in ordinary parish assignments, but they have been removed from that situation, there is more room for the judicial process to play out.

And, indeed, that’s the American church’s current policy: Yank a priest from ministry at the first credible accusation and then deal with longer-term canonical questions afterwards.

So I don’t get it.

I’m not seeing the CDF saying to leave these priests in pastoral assignments, and so while I see room for criticism, I don’t see a basis for the kind of apoplexy that the press is experiencing.

Your thoughts?

Hey, I Waited Till It Was Over!

So Easter Sunday I was lying down, working on my laptop, when all of a sudden the lights flicker and the room starts rocking back and forth.

Realizing it was an earthquake, I hopped up and thought about standing under the door frame–except I've recently heard that that isn't such a great idea after all–and I became quite surprised at how long the quake was taking.

Previous quakes I've been in since moving to California have often just been a single jolt, and they'd never gone on as long as this one. (It ended up being 60-90 seconds long, which is a long time in earthquake terms.)

So I decided to go outside in case things got worse and my house became dangerous to be in.

Lo and behold, a lot of my neighbors had decided to do the same thing!

It felt like the pavement was sitting on the surface of a giant bowl of Jello pudding that was rapidly wiggling back and forth.

But there was no damage, and so my guess is that when the quake hit my area (El Cajon) it wasfelt like somewhere between a 4 and a 5. Let's say a 4.0 for simplicity purposes,

At the time I had no idea where the epicenter of the quake was, but given its length, I thought it might be quite a distance away and, if so, I thought, "This may be huge."

After it seemed to finish (though I continued to feel things that felt like aftershocks–or after-wiggles, one of which was very strong and went on for a few seconds), I went back indoors and . . .

. . . started talking about it on Facebook (from which it automatically got picked up by my Twitter feed).

I mean, it's the 21st century, now, right? That's what you're supposed to do.

I also posted photos and updates and I learned more.

Turned out that the epicenter was south of the border town Calexico, in northern Mexico, south of Imperial County.

And it was a 7.2, which makes it actually a bigger quake than the one that struck Haiti.

And since the earthquake scale is base-10 logarithmic, that means that if the quake had a force of 4.0 here in El Cajon, it was more than a thousand times stronger at the epicenter.see combox

Someone commented on one of my Facebook posts with a link to the following cartoon, which I got a real kick out of.

UPDATE: I am informed that some installments of this comic involve problematic material. Caveat lector. 

Latest U.K. Absurdity

Se4 So there's a news story from across the pond explaining how Parliament has just inserted a provision in a sex-ed bill that allows "faith schools" (i.e., Catholic ones, etc.) to tell their students that things like contraception are wrong.

Terribly nice of them, isn't it?

Mind you, they're not letting the schools refuse to teach how to contracept. Oh, no. Children must still have to have a full, robust course of the how-to's.

So the message that "faith schools" will be required to give is, "Contraception is wrong according to our faith. Now here's how you do it anyway . . . "

Satisfying compromise, eh wot?

Tea and scones, anybody?

GET THE STORY.

Oh, and homosexuality apparently gets similar treatment.

Not What The Mikado Expected

Bownumbertwo I'm sure most folks have seen the picture of President Obama bowing to the Emperor of Japan.

We'll it's not the first time he's done that with a foreign head of state, though this time it's even more impossible to argue (as some of his defenders, including his own press secretary, Spokesbot Robert Gibbs, did when he bowed to King Abdullah) that he was just bending over to shake the hand of a short foreign leader.

No, this was a bow–captured unmistakably in the photo from the side.

No doubt, he did it out of a belief that this is a polite way to greet people in Japan.

But one has to be careful about imitating the customs of people from other cultures, lest one send unintended messages.

For example: Does bowing to the Mikado convey politeness or subservience?

Knowing that kind of nuance is not part of a president's job requirements–but it is the reason he has a protocol office that is supposed to advise him about such things, and as Allahpundit points out, Obama's protocol office is "famously run by imbeciles."

I'm not instantly enraged at the idea of a president bowing to someone. Actually, I'm more disturbed by seeing American leaders dressing up in foreign garb at diplomatic events. But then presidents of both parties do that. I understand that it can be construed as conveying honor to another culture to adopt its dress, but clothing is so personal–and so much more perduring than a simple bow–that my preferred solution would be to have everybody show up in his own native garb (business suits for American presidents; plus formal attire for formal events).

There's always a question of how much to defer to local custom when in a foreign land, and a bow–like every gesture–has the meaning that is invested in it. It need not always convey subservience, and if there were a land where not bowing was insulting and in which their leader would reciprocally bow to our leader then I could understand.

But look at who's not bowing in the picture above.

And look at who's not bowing in the following video:

So. President Obama is made to look like a fool by what is clearly another protocol office mistake.

That raises a disturbing question: Why hasn't Obama learned his lesson from the protocol office's previous mistakes and replaced the appropriate individuals with more knowledgeable ones?

Thomas Sowell wonders what the real-world consequences will be of Obama making himself–and by the extension the United States–look weak in foreign eyes. And it does seem inevitable that this event would be read in light of Obama's tendency to apologize (in the "I'm sorry" sense) for the United States when on foreign soil.

Which brings up something else Allahpundit notes:

For another thing, and somewhat notably, Japan isn’t a stop on The One’s world apology tour. It could have been, but he declined the opportunity to turn it into one.

And he's right. Here's a case where–because of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki–the United States really does have something to apologize to Japan for. Defending ourselves in World War II was morally justifiable, but nuking cities to put pressure on the Japanese government was not.

Astonishing

President announces violent shooting of U.S. soldiers at Ft. Hood.

But first . . . !

He thanks his cabinet, gives "shout outs," talks his political agenda, and gets crowd whooping and hollering and clapping.

Then he announces the tragedy and says what his "immediate thoughts" are.

How tone deaf is that? What does that say about his priorities . . . and how seriously he takes the tragedy he was about to announce.

Calling this Obama's My Pet Goat moment is an understatement.

And it'll only look worse as the fact–which the president presumably knew (since it's one of the very first things he should have been told)–that the shooter was a disgruntled Muslim penetrates public consciousness. 

(Presumably the president did not know that the disgruntled Muslim also got into arguments with fellow soldiers about how Muslims should stand up to American aggressors and that he posted apparent justifications for suicide bombers on the Internet.)