I Actually Agree With Obama? Twice???

I am horrified with myself. Apparently, I’ve started agreeing with President Obama on some things. First, there was the defense spending cuts from last month. President Obama announced that they plan to cut the military budget by half a trillion dollars. Honestly, it sounds like a good start to me! Now more recently, the Obama administration made the decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges, and charities to offer health insurance coverage to employees for contraception and the “morning-after pill.’’ Another decision I can completely get behind.

I haven’t agreed with much from Obama…especially on his handling of domestic and economic affairs. I feel his actions have set us back at least a decade in recovering from this downturn in the economic cycle…and that is reason enough for me to not want him elected to a second term…I think it would be wildly dangerous to have him in charge for 4 more years. However, I’ve actually been moderately pleased with his Foreign Policy exploits this term. The operation to kill Osama bin Laden was a high point. The man responsible for the horrors of 9/11 was dead…and it was done without a war! It was done through intelligence and a quick decision to take advantage of the situation with a few elite troops. Get in, get the kill, get out. Done. Well done, for that matter. He did end the Iraq War, even though this only happened because the Iraqi government refused to allow our troops to stay and insisted that the withdrawal of our troops stay on President Bush’s timeline. But, at least they are out. And troop drawdowns in Afghanistan seem likely in the somewhat near future. These are good things. And now come budget cuts and a military strategy realignment which seems headed in the right direction.

Declaring that "the tide of war is receding," President Obama ordered a shift from the nation's longstanding capability to fight two major conflicts at once. The new strategy calls for being able to fight one major conventional conflict while conducting numerous unconventional operations elsewhere, such as policing actions, counterterrorism and disaster relief. I mean, this is still far too much…not sure why we feel the need to police the world…but we honestly don’t need to be fighting two wars at once. Ever. No one’s going to attack the U.S. As long as we can defend our borders, we should be fine. But at least this is an initial step in the right direction.

Senior Pentagon officials said the new planning construct will work better for the kind of leaner, more agile force that might be needed to quickly respond to a number of situations and conflicts. At the same time, Obama and the Pentagon’s new strategy argue that the U.S. military can effectively fight al Qaeda even with reduced funding: “We will keep our armed forces the best-trained, best-led, best-equipped fighting force in history,” Obama writes in the strategy. I happen to agree. Training and better strategies are how you fight terrorists…not long, drawn out wars. Terrorists don’t have a home country we can just bomb the shit out of. They are everywhere. We have to be more tactical in how we go about it. The new strategy signals troop cuts will be coming without specific numbers yet. "U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations," it says. This is the best quote in the whole strategy…as it would eliminate the shit we just went through in Iraq…and force us to set clear objectives, execute, and then get out. Much more effective use of our military…assuming we feel the need to keep going out and intervening around the world.

So, yeah, that caught me off guard. Wasn’t expecting to ever agree with something Obama came up with. And then came the decision on health insurance coverage at the religiously affiliates workplaces…and, here we are, agreeing with him again.

The Obama administration’s recent decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges, and charities to offer health insurance coverage to employees for contraception and the “morning-after pill” just seems to makes sense. Not all employees of Catholic institutions are Catholics. Why should their employers impose their religious beliefs on them and deny coverage for birth control and other medical care? As long as those Catholic institutions are getting taxpayer money, they should follow secular rules.

Obama isn’t trying to regulate religion or undermine Catholicism. He’s telling Catholic leaders they can’t regulate the beliefs of those of other faiths. This makes perfect sense in a country that was supposedly built on, in part, religious freedom, but also values separation of church and state. It seems really reasonable to require these institutions to follow the rules all other employers are forced to follow.

So, there we have it. Two decisions by the Obama administration that I’ve agreed with. Not nearly enough to make me ever contemplate voting for him…but surprising nonetheless. Just figured I should prove my moderate chops and show that I don’t just blindly hate on everything Obama does (like most Republicans do). My positions on candidates and politics are always thoughts out, and don’t toe any single party line.