Reacts from the right sphere on Preisdent Obama’s speech and the entire controversy.
Michelle Malkin, from before the speech.
Today, President Obama spoiled graduation ceremonies for a more than de minimis number of University of Notre Dame students and/or their close family members by delivering the commencement speech and accepting an honorary degree. He did so to advance his political and ideological interests.
In fairness to Obama, these interests are considerable. Obama hopes to drive a wedge between the leaders of the Catholic Church and rank-and-file Catholics in order to substantially reduce Church leaders and their teachings as a moral force in the United States. Such a reduction, in turn, will remove a barrier to Obama’s left-wing agenda, especially his left-wing social agenda, just as the steep decline in the authority of Catholic Church paved the way the leftist agenda in certain European countries.
Greg Hengler at Townhall with video of the speech.
Mark Impomeni at Redstate:
But President Obama’s decision to accept the invitation, and to keep it in the face of the growing controversy, is worthy of examination as well. President Obama may not have thought that his acceptance of the invitation to speak at Notre Dame would be controversial when he confirmed it. However, as the controversy surrounding the speech grew from an online petition drive to angry comments from the Vatican, President Obama should have realized that his presence at the school on graduation day had become a distraction for the graduates and their families, and placed his host in an awkward situation. As a guest has an obligation to avoid placing his host in embarrassing circumstances, President Obama should have found a way to gracefully extricate himself from the speech. That he did not is evidence of a fundamental lack of decency in the President of the United States.
Several reactions from National Review. Ramesh Ponnuru has an article up.
Rod Dreher has the whole speech and some thoughts
EARLIER: Notre Dame and Catholics in America
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin
More from Rod Dreher
UPDATE #2: Patrick Deenen:
The President’s speech – as could be expected – was quite masterful. He is a wordsmith of first order, but more, has a remarkable rhetorical ability to call for forms of higher reconciliation and transcendence of division that has otherwise been fomented by so many other politicians and opinion leaders of our age. While most on the Right either suspect him of bad faith, or impute such bad faith to him for political advantage, I believe he honestly desires to heal some of the worst divisions of the nation. His call yesterday both to include a “conscience clause” to protect professionals who object to the practice of abortion (and gay marriage?), and his call to reduce the number of abortions – including the commendation of adoption as an option – appeared to have been enthusiastically greeted by nearly everyone at the ceremony.
UPDATE #3: Alan Jacobs at The Scene
UPDATE: #4: Daniel Larison
More Paul Mirengoff
Ramesh Ponnuru in WaPo
And from the left, Kevin Drum on Ponnuru’s WaPo take.
UPDATE #4: Robert Cheeks at PoMoCon
At The League, Chris Dierkes and, responding to Larison, E.D. Kain
UPDATE #5: Jacob Sullum in Reason
UPDATE #6: James Poulos
UPDATE #7: Damon Linker responds to Larison, as does HC Johns and John Schwenkler
UPDATE #8: More from JL Wall on Larison, faith and doubt.
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May 18, 2009 at 11:19 pm
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