Christmas Eve Open Thread [12.24.13]

There is a desire among the Washington elite, and conservatives, to declare without evidence that President Obama is just as bad as Bush, I suppose to allow themselves to write their lazy “both sides do it” crap. The new angle is that, just as President Bush’s presidency crashed to Earth in 2005 after his End Social Security Bill went nowhere, Iraq blew up and Hurricane Katrina hit. Jonathan Chait ain’t buying it:

The conventional wisdom – propounded by many of the same pundits now equating Obama with Bush – held that Obama’s hardball tactics would backfire. Obama needed to negotiate over the debt ceiling, and didn’t dare change the Senate’s rules, argued, to take one example, Ron Fournier. To fail to placate conservatives would only enrage them more. This analysis turned out to have it backward. Congress managed to pass a budget for the first time in three years precisely because Obama defeated the GOP’s extortion tactics, forcing Republicans to actually trade policy concessions rather than demand a ransom.

The prospects for Obama’s second term remain constricted. Not many deals beckon in Congress. The Obamacare rollout was surely a political disaster, but the administration has three more years to get the law up and running. By the end of 2005, George W. Bush had seen the promise of his presidency collapse from justifiably lofty heights. At the end of 2013, Obama stands at just about the same place he began his term.

Additionally, Obama will benefit from an economy that is taking off. Bush was faced with an economy that was collapsing.

Since it is Christmas Eve, I thought I would address a move Pope Francis made last week. During the 2004 election, conservative Catholics were strutting around like they owned the religion, and owned the country. They were emboldened by the socially conservative bent of President Bush and the Republican Congress. Remember, this was a Congress that came out of recess to solely address, debate and vote on the Terri Schiavo case. In the run up to the 2004 election, Boston Cardinal Raymond Burke announced that Democratic Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry was not welcome to receive communion in any church in his diocese.

Well, Pope Francis removed Cardinal Burke from the Congreation of Bishops, which has great influence on finding the future leaders of the church. And it would seem that Burke’s public statements about denying communion are the reason why. Here is Pope Francis’ thoughts on the openness of the Church in his Evangelii Gaudium:

The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door. There are other doors that should not be closed either. Everyone can share in some way in the life of the Church; everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason. This is especially true of the sacrament which is itself “the door”: baptism. The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.

Merry Christmas everyone! And if you don’t celebrate it, Happy Holidays!