Category: Politics
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Rick Santorum Is Right
Deal W. Hudson Published I’ve been in the media business long enough to have learned a thing or two about the way the system works. Sometimes I learned those lessons the hard way after being misquoted or having my statements taken out of context by an unfriendly reporter. It’s like playing the old game of…
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Jim Towey on Why the Government Cannot Love
Deal W. Hudson Published In the midst of Valentine’s Day sentiment, it’s refreshing to hear someone who speaks plainly about love. At a White House briefing on February 6, Jim Towey, the new Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives, said something that ought to be heard–“government cannot love.” Towey, who…
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Does the USCCB Understand Subsidiarity?
Deal W. Hudson Published January 3, 2011 The plan of House Republicans to read the Constitution aloud on January 6, the second day of the 112th Congress, has provoked jeering from the liberal media. Yet in the midst of the jeers came a revealing comment from Washington Postcolumnist and blogger Ezra Klein in an appearance…
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Chris Matthews, John Allen, and Odious Comparisons
Deal W. Hudson Published February 10, 2011 John Allen, senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, routinely uses the phrase “Taliban Catholicism” to describe “an exaggerated allergy to anything that smacks of secularism, liberalization, or corruption by modernity – an angry form of the faith that knows only how to excoriate and condemn.” Allen says…
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The 2012 Dark Horse?
Deal Hudson Published March 10, 2012 Most conversations in Washington these days end up running down the list of likely GOP candidates who will run for the presidential nomination in 2012. The strengths and weaknesses of Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Haley Barbour are quickly…
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The Clerical Smile–The Chief Obstacle to Catholic Political Participation
Deal Hudson Published May 29, 2012 When asked in 1999 to lead Governor Bush’s Catholic outreach, I assumed the chief obstacle to overcome was the deeply embedded loyalty to a distorted version of the “seamless garment” found in many of the Catholic institutions of our nation. Under this brand, the Catholic concern for the most…
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Five Things Every Catholic Politician Needs to Know
Deal W. Hudson Published June 12, 2012 Any earnest Catholic who either runs for political office, or is attempting to hold office, deserves both our admiration and our prayers. Because it is the Catholic politician, more than the politician who identifies with other religious traditions, who finds himself or herself immersed in a series of…
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Catholics Prepare for Obama Phone Calls
Deal W. Hudson Published September 28, 2012 The head of a pro-life committee at a parish I know just received a call from the Obama campaign. The caller asked for her daughter by name, and when she was not there then asked where she could be contacted. Her mother responded by telling the Obama supporter,…
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Substance and Smirks–Paul Ryan Debates Joe Biden
Deal Hudson Published October 12, 2012 Thursday evening’s debate between the Vice Presidential candidates was historic in the history of American politics: Never before have both vice presidential candidates professed membership in the Catholic Church and claimed with pride the name Catholic as an accurate description of their Christian faith. Yes, both Ryan and Biden…
Deal W. Hudson 