Notre Dame

Dear religious pro-life Catholics, get over yourselves. Signed, Amy Sullivan.

Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but the Time magazine staffer practically expressed those sentiments in two April 30 Swampland blog posts wherein she suggests that even the pope wouldn't mind hanging out with Obama on stage at Notre Dame when he accepts his honorary doctorate later this month.

"The Vatican apparently needs to get on-message--its newpaper gives Obama's first 100 days a tentative thumbs-up," Sullivan snarkily noted in a an April 30 post entitled "The Phantom Menace," referring to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which Sullivan considers a virtually non-existent pro-life movement bogeyman:

[Ed Henry's press conference] question is a misstatement of Obama's campaign pledge to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." Of course, before Obama could sign the bill, Congress would have to first pass it. And he's never expressed the hope that Congress drop what it's doing and prioritize FOCA.

Less than an hour later, Sullivan sought to marginalize conservative Catholics who are disturbed by Notre Dame honoring the very pro-choice President Obama:

While most of the mainstream media yawned at news that former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon was refusing Notre Dame's Laetare award due to the university honoring pro-choice President Barack Obama, USA Today's Cathy Lynn Grossman sure hasn't.

The religion reporter/blogger found her own unique, passive-aggressive way to slam Glendon's stand on principle by suggesting she's a self-righteous hypocrite.

In her April 30 post, "Who's a good enough Catholic for Notre Dame's top honor?", Grossman delighted in excerpting a satirical open letter by Jesuit priest Rev. James Martin, who penned a blog post for America magazine making light of the university's pressing need to find a new person to honor with the coveted Laetare Award (emphasis mine):

Monday's NBC Nightly News, unlike the ABC and CBS newscasts,  made time for a short item about how a Harvard law professor, scheduled to receive an award from Notre Dame the same day President Obama is to receive an honorary degree and deliver the commencement address, announced she will not attend because she disagrees with the Catholic university honoring someone who goes against the church's position on unborn life. The full item from anchor Brian Williams:

More fallout tonight from Notre Dame's decision to have President Obama deliver the commencement address. Mary Ann Glendon, who was Barack Obama's law professor at Harvard and a former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, now says she will not accept the university's highest award because the school is honoring a President whose position on abortion starkly differs from that of the Catholic church.

Major media began shielding Barack Obama from criticism early in the presidential primaries. It's no surprise, then, when they continue to do so today. However, the media's collective, instinctive tone-deafness in regard to grassroots activities continues to stun and amaze.

NewsBusters has so far noted several grassroots efforts that have been ignored – despite similar left-leaning efforts getting fantastic coverage. For example, there was Noel Sheppard's initial entry on the Chicago Tea Parties, and the tiny amount of coverage they received. Then, there was Warner Todd Huston, noting the San Francisco Chronicle's preferential treatment of an anti-Wall Street protest. For the magnum opus, however, we turn to the entire mainstream media's blind eye – pointed squarely at the University of Notre Dame.