Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal and participant at last week’s Roosevelt (that’d be TR) Room confab with the current POTUS in the White House, weighs in with the real deal on what went down in his essay, “Yes, Mr. President”:
It is necessary to report that although Obama is supposed to be 6’2?, he’s actually closer to 10 feet tall. There is also, as rumor has it, a glow or aura surrounding him that television cameras simply do not pick up. And then there’s his voice. You see his lips move, but his voice seems to come, in a kind of whisper, from somewhere above and beyond. Even stranger, Obama’s voice sounds nothing like it does on TV, but rather uncannily like that of John Houston’s narration in the movie The Bible.
Wow. Unfortunately, Paul is, as he says, joking. (Seriously. He’s JOKING.) But the rest is serious and informative. E.g.:
Aside from abortion and a few other issues, it can be said that he “speaks Catholic” well, especially when discussing the church’s social-justice teachings. He is quite aware that he has become something of a proxy figure, as either a villain or a hero, in the long running battle between so-called liberal and so-called conservative Catholics. Asked about belligerent remarks made about the pope by some gay-rights advocates, predictably he urged polemical restraint on everyone. He then spoke with real conviction about why gays and lesbians might legitimately feel victimized by Christian churches.
SNIP
At one level there is an “irreducible difference, conflict on the abortion issue,” he said. Still, both sides can work together to reduce the number of abortions. If given an opportunity for a follow-up question, I would have asked Obama to explain what exactly he understands that irreducible conflict to be. As long as Roe is the law of the land, the common ground the president so eloquently speaks of will continue to demand much from abortion opponents and few or no concessions from his political allies in the abortion-rights movement.
The rest is here…
