You make no mention that the list is a list of people with long records of apostacies and heresies.

Respected, noted and noble are adjectives that are not reserved for this group. Save for the same crew of dissidents who have long been voting against prolife, this list is the symbolic gargoyle of any authentically practicing Catholic.

Re Bob Casey - what a traitor to the pro-life movement. He's not half the man his father was. PA residents reading this, remember this at the next election.

He could have the Bishops conference on there and it would not make a difference after his disgusting and insulting remarks towards small town Americans. I was willing to give this man a listen till that. Remark. Rev. Wright is not Obama, despite the ill advised relationship. His insulting words to the hard working faithful Americans who live in small town America will no doubt end up costing him the election, and hopefully the nomination, if we are so blessed to be spared the coming assault on the every growing number of gaffes and mis statements made by this young candidate.

Obama has shown himself to be a "cultural" eltitist. I was born and live in the rual Midwest. We are hard working,optimistic, and patriotic Americans. Yes, many us of own guns and faith is central to many of our lives. I am deeply insulted and his remarks cement my belief that the former "party of the working class" has become infected with abortionists and snobs.

You cannot support or vote for Obama and remain in communion.Sen.Casey's statements reported today show poor reasoning and inadequate chatachesis. Abortion allows for no prudential judgment,allowing a vote for Obama in the hope he'll agree with social teaching.Who's his Bishop?Will members of Obama's board agree to debates? I make the offer, now who will accept?

I don't get how people misunderstood Barack's message in San Francisco. He was saying that both parties, Democrats and Republicans, have allowed small town America to fall into disrepair. Each election year we hear how politicians are going to bring jobs back to America. But instead we get things like NAFTA and free trade with China. While it is true that such agreements make goods cheaper at Walmart and "American" cars cheaper, they take away American jobs.

Barack was saying that when this happens election cycle after cycle, small town Americans stop listening to economic promises and vote on issues such as religion and guns.

Is that all that inaccurate? You don't think people on the south side of Chicago, in Flint, MI, or Canton, OH feel as though big business has shipped their factory jobs oversees with the approval and encouragement of the government?

This is why Barack sees those people as bitter. It is not as Deal characterizes it, that they were bitter for losing jobs. Barack says they are bitter that politicians promise jobs will come back, but never do anything about it once in Washington. The bitterness comes from broken promises about bringing jobs back, not about losing jobs. There is a big difference.

So when recent legislative history tells a person that economic platforms don't apply to them, then they turn to other issues that do, such as religion and guns. Is that an incorrect statement?

So I don't really care if Obama wins or not, but I think the misrepresentation of his comments has been great. For that reason I defend the words he actually said, not some talking heads interpretation.

Ryan,

So glad you bought Obama's clarification of his comments. How many times are we going to be subjected to his "what I really meant to say was.....?" When these comments first became public he very arrogantly stood by what he said. He only came out and "clarified" when the issue didn't die and go away.

I live in Pennsylvania. The high corporate taxes drove businesses away and continue to do so. The state's economy won't improve until we improve the tax structure, but the state government has no motivation to do so as long as demagogues continue to tell people that more government will bring them more jobs. It hasn't worked before, and it won't work in the future, but enough people believe it to keep the demagogues coming. Let's get it straight--businesses create jobs, not government. Sure, government can create more government jobs, but only through higher taxes, and what happens when the state starts to run out of people and businesses to tax? Yeah--Pennsylvania, Michigan, and the rest of the rust belt--that's what happens.

And Ryan, yes, it is incorrect to say that my religious faith affects my voting only because the government won't help me economically. Killing the unborn is wrong. Period. I won't vote for a pro-abortion candidate as long as there is a pro-life candidate to vote for. The great evil of abortion is a question quite aside from economics. 1.3 million abortions a year--I can't ignore that, and I refuse to support a candidate who accepts that, no matter how "charismatic" he--or she--may be. I don't think Barack or Hillary will ever understand that I vote on the basis of a moral stance, not as a matter of what I might get out of the government for myself.

Cathleen Kaveny showed her Catholic "expertise" when she tarred B16 as a man driven by fear. She opined (on the Newsweek/WaPo blog) that he is deathly afraid of taking advantage of the gifts of women for the good of the church, and that fear is somehow, disjointedly combined with the laying of a gauntlet: to show he's serious about the feminine genius, he must stop the gang rapes in the Congo (and, I supposed, ordain women). For a college professor, I find her disingenuous and illogical.

For another view of women, she gave her opinion of Mulieris Dignitatem on the Commonweal site. Cliffnotes version: "theology of the body" is simply "biology is destiny" in new wrapping. No surprises there.

There's been much said and written in the last few days to debunk Clinton's and McCain's claims that Obama is elitist and out of touch. But, the knuckle-dragging, right-wingnuts keep repeating their conveniently negative interpretations of the simply truths that Obama spoke.

I find it especially telling that Obama was called "boy" and "elitist" on the same day.

During a town meeting two days ago, a PA supporter expressed his view that "elitist" really meant "uppity." The supporter felt strongly that Obama's opponents were playing the race card. Obama said that he thought it was just politics.

We'll see.

Regardless of who used "boy" or "elitist," McCain would spare all the black babies being eugenically destroyed by Obama and Company.

Who really supports the dignity of blacks: those who subscribe to Sanger's code (which mixes conveniently with ghetto rap and single-parent households) -OR- those who uphold the right to life of all the precious unborn, no matter their skin colour?

Obama is a disgrace.

Contrary to what Deal and others have said, this "advisory board" as it stands is EXACTLY what Obama needs if he wants to understand the "Catholic" vote.

Is this board representative of genuine orthodox Catholicism? Not by a long shot, but it has more than just the Kennedy/Kerry/Sebelius brand of CINOs, too. Casey is not by any means someone to be revered, but he is by no means in the same vein as the aformentioned nominal Catholics. To me, he seems like a "bridge" between faithful Democrat voters who are disillusioned with their party (the "old ladies who think they are voting for FDR," as Robert Novak once said) and the current "modernist" types like Pelosi. Roemer, in the meantime (and Doug Kmiec, if he would lend his talents) would represent the otherside of the spectrum. All identify themselves as "Catholic" and all must be understood if one wants to really know how to attract the "Catholic" vote.

That's why Casey's place at the top of the list makes so much sense to me. He really is the synthesis of the two schools of thought in U.S. Catholic political thought today.
Does this excuse Casey's endorsment? No. Should any Catholic be voting for a pro-choicer? No. But this committee is, politically speaking, a very, very powerful tool.

Obama's advisory board can "identify themselves as Catholic" all they want, but it makes no difference.Catholicism is neither genetic nor cultural. It is adherence to beliefs passed on from the Apostles and Tradition and as set forth by the Magisterium. Catholicism does not allow for the nuances Casey and the others cling to.There's not a dime's worth of difference between Pelosi, Roemer,Casey and Kmiec on the issue of supporting a politician who publicly contradicts the Church's teaching.They cannot support Obama and remain in communion.It's as simple as that.Cite to me the Scripture,Church Father,Doctor of the Church, Catechism or Papal document that allows a Catholic to support abortion-supporting politicians with McCain in the race.You can't, so why are we having this debate?

Right to life Democrats have been denied a platform in the Democractic conventions for years. When it comes to abortion, liberalism goes out the window. The rights of persons ( or potential persons ) is denied resulting in the termination of millions of U.S. citizens - real or potential.

Roe versus Wade was about the government not knowing when life begins. No matter where you stand on this premise, we now have experienced many years of aborting babies after actual life is proven to begin. We have cases of murder and manslaughter against people where the baby in a pregnant mother is killed.

Why would any Catholic or any person of good will side with a party that ignores these realities.

See Abortion is a geopolitical problem too at http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews/id13.html (At http://www.therationale.com/ we explore philosophy and religion relating to labor and workers being the stepchildren of Globalization and Free Trade )