President Obama in Control

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last week or so, you've heard the incessant clamor from the right about the new rules regarding contraception.  All employers were required to provide insurance coverage that included birth control with narrow exceptions for churches.  The rules applied to employers like Catholic hospitals and universities.  The sanctimonious Republicans, led by new front-runner Rick Santorum, raised holy hell about Obama's War on Religion.  Santorum warned of Christians being marched to the guillotine a la the French Revolution.  You would think Obama was ordering priests to hand out pills along with the Host at the alter.  Today, he announced a compromise in which insurance companies must pick up the tab for contraceptive coverage if a religious institution objects (although plenty of religious institutions including universities routinely offer insurance that includes birth control). 

This whole controversy was contrived and invented, but I think it represents President Obama the politician at his most brilliant.  He has always had a talent for seemingly sitting back, not taking the bait, and letting his enemies destroy themselves.  If you don't believe me, ask Hillary Clinton or John McCain.  For these past few weeks, he has sat back as the Republicans screamed that he was destroying religious liberty by making contraception widely available.  Birth control is popular.  People like birth control.  Women especially like birth control.  Just when things reached a fever pitch, the President announced a reasonable, sensible compromise that accommodated religious institutions and preserved the availability of contraceptives. 

Between this and the Komen flap, the Republicans have done an excellent job of painting themselves as the party that wants to take away your birth control while the President has emerged as sensible, measured, and in control. It's almost like he planned it this way.