Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 04:31 pm
The corporate media allowed two Christian leaders to take over the Easter Sunday morning airwaves in order to launch a partisan attack on President Obama.
Here is the video from Face The Nation:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
BOB SCHIEFFER: So I guess that question I’d ask you, Your Eminence, are you good with that?
CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN: No, although I appreciate very much the Vice President. He has been helpful and I– I– I have benefitted from his counsel and I look forward to talking to him again. So I am glad he weighed in on it but I would disagree with him. It hasn’t helped us much, Bob, because– because we still have to pay for it, because most of us are self-insured and we are still worried not just about our institutions but also the individuals. So we still find ourselves in a very tough spot, and we’re still going to continue to express what we believe is just not a religious point of view but a constitutional point of view that America’s at her best when the government doesn’t force a citizen or a group of citizens in a religious creed to violate their deepest held moral convictions.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you agree with what the vice president seemed to be saying that this– that the President really didn’t change his position?
CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN: Yes, I– I think so. Although I am a little confused, because the President told me his convict— his position, his conviction is that the government would do nothing to impede religion. And he– he was very gracious, and especially complimenting the Catholic family in the United States in their work for health care charity and education. And he’d say I don’t want this administration to do anything to– to impede that. It’s tough for me to see how the strangling HHS Regulations do anything but that.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this: Do you ever worry that sometimes– do you like to be careful about getting too involved in politics? I know since the–
CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN: You do.
BOB SCHIEFFER: –new Pew poll out that says sixty percent of Catholics say that churches and other houses of worship should just totally steer clear of politics.
CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN: Yeah. I do worry about that, Bob. And this– this is a good place for me to– to remind everybody, we didn’t ask for this fight, I don’t enjoy it at all, I wish I was on here FACE THE NATION answering other questions and you probably do, too. We didn’t ask for the fight but we’re not going to back away from it. What I’d say is this: Yeah, I don’t think religion should be too involved in politics but I also don’t think the government and politics should be overly involved in the church, and that’s our problem here. You’ve got a dramatic, radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy into the internal life of the church that bothers me. So hear me say, hey, I’d like to back away from this, I got other things to worry about and bigger fish to fry than this. Our problem is the government is intruding into the– into the life of faith and in– in the church that they shouldn’t be doing. That’s– that’s our– our read on this.
On ABC’s This Week, Rick Warren continued the Obama attacks:
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
R. WARREN: Well certainly the Bible says we are to care about the poor. There’s over 2,000 versus in the Bible about the poor. And God says that those who care about the poor, God will care about them and God will bless them. But there’s a fundamental question on the meaning of “fairness.” Does fairness mean everybody makes the same amount of money? Or does fairness mean everybody gets the opportunity to make the same amount of money? I do not believe in wealth redistribution, I believe in wealth creation.
The only way to get people out of poverty is J-O-B-S. Create jobs. To create wealth, not to subsidize wealth. When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity. The primary purpose of government is to keep the peace, protect the citizens, provide opportunity. And when we start getting into all kinds of other things, I think we — we invite greater control. And I’m fundamentally about freedom. You know the — the first freedom in America is actually the freedom of religion. It’s not the second, third, fourth or fifth.
TAPPER: You — you’ve written about this, especially on Twitter a great deal when it comes to the Obama administration’s health care rule when it pertains to contraception. You — you objected to that. Initially they dialed it back.
R. WARREN: Yeah.
TAPPER: How are you with what they called an “accommodation?” Where you OK with that, or no?
R. WARREN: Well, no I’m not. But the issue here is not about women’s health. There’s a greater principle and that is do you have a right to decide what your faith practices? Now I don’t have a problem with contraception. I’m a — I’m a Protestant. I’m an evangelical. But I do support my Catholic brothers and sisters who believe what they want to believe.
TAPPER: You said in December that no American could say that they’re better off than they were four years ago.
R. WARREN: Well I don’t think so, not economically. There may be a — a portion but I have my ear to the ground. Most people would not think they’re better off economically than they were four years ago.
The only reason either of these men were on national television was because it was Easter Sunday. Both of them could have limited themselves to a non-political Easter message, but they chose to misuse their positions as religious leaders to attack the President of the United States. We watched two high profile Christians morph from moral leaders to partisan political hacks.
Cardinal Dolan spoke about holding a religious and constitutional point of view. Rick Warren sounded like he was straight out of Fox News with his talk of wealth redistribution and chatter about Americans not being better off than they were four years ago. Just for kicks Warren and Jake Tapper also worked in the false statistic that 50% of Americans don’t pay income taxes, but do you know who really doesn’t pay taxes? Rick Warren and his mega church are tax exempt. Dolan discussed the issue of religious freedom, but he has no problem with the government intervening to take away the rights of women.
Why are Rick Warren and Timothy Dolan allowed to go on national television and spread their dangerous concoction of politics fueled religion on Easter Sunday? There is something fundamentally wrong with religious leaders abusing their position and the air time that comes with it on a religious holiday to attack President Obama.
Instead of their usual slate of Republicans, the Sunday shows changed it up by featuring Christian leaders who were pushing the right’s agenda. It doesn’t matter what holiday it is. The mainstream media’s conservative bias will always be allowed to shine.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
