Yet there was no doubt that Obama had found himself in an untenable position. He needed to walk back fast and find another route to his goal.
The controversy over contraception and religious liberty was overshadowing his agenda, threatening to alienate key voters and giving ammunition to the Republicans running for his job. It was a mess that knocked the White House off its message and vision for a second term.
Leaders from opposite sides of the divisive debate said they supported the outcome — or at least suggested they probably could live with it. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York, the head of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops and a fierce critic of the original rule covering hospitals and other employers, said the bishops were reserving judgment but that Obama’s move was a good first step.
The bishops’ organization later issued a far more skeptical critique contending that the new approach offered insufficient protections for religious employers and calling that unacceptable.
Republicans hoping to oust Obama from the White House were conceding nothing. Though not mentioning the birth control issue, Newt Gingrich assailed the president’s views of religious rights and said “I frankly don’t care what deal he tries to cut. … If he wins re-election, he will wage war on the Catholic Church the morning after he’s re-elected.’’
Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, said the decision didn’t change anything.
“Today he did the classic Obama retreat, all right, and what I mean by that is it wasn’t a retreat at all. It’s another deception,’’ Romney said while campaigning in Portland, Maine.
Obama, acknowledging he wanted a resolution to the controversy, ordered advisers to find a middle ground in days, not within a year as had been the plan before the uproar. He said he spoke as a Christian who cherishes religious freedom and as a president unwilling to give up on free contraceptive care.
