Obama struggles to reach midfield, much less goal line

President Obama is playing defense as he struggles to quell the controversy over his administration's new birth-control rule. He's on offense as he promotes his new budget.

But he faces the same dilemma in either mode: how to negotiate with adversaries who define compromise as "let's you and me agree to do things my way."

At the same time, his administration's own political missteps are getting in the way of Mr. Obama's agenda and his re-election campaign, even when his policies are sound.

The President's interpretation that the health-care reform law guarantees women free, nondiscriminatory access to contraceptive coverage as part of their standard medical insurance reflects an important principle: Use of birth control within a system of preventive care reduces abortion and unwanted or medically risky pregnancies. Contraceptive coverage is the law in 28 states (not including Ohio).

Still, an administration that has been in power this long should have anticipated the resistance to its directive from institutions, notably the Roman Catholic Church, that oppose contraception. Instead, Mr. Obama and administration officials endured nearly two weeks of unrelenting attacks before they offered a compromise that should have been the policy all along: Religious employers -- not just churches, but also hospitals, universities, and charities -- will not be required to spend their own money on coverage they find morally objectionable.

The solution isn't perfect -- what happens, for example, when religious employers insure themselves? -- but it's workable. Insurers that will pick up the cost of birth-control coverage for women employed by religiously affiliated institutions will pay less than they would to cover pregnancies. The President's assertion that these savings will ensure that other Americans will not have to subsidize the exempt institutions deserves a fair test.

Yet after they emerged as the President's chief antagonists on the issue, the nation's Catholic bishops are doubling down on their opposition. They say they will settle for nothing less than a full retreat by Mr. Obama, forcing him to rescind the new policy.

The bishops argue that even secular, for-profit employers should be allowed to opt out of coverage because of moral objections. What if their employees don't share those objections? Don't their beliefs matter? Such ultimatums leave no room to look for common ground.

As a Roman Catholic, I respect the sincerity of church leaders' opposition to contraception, even as I -- and, if you believe the polls about Catholic women's use of birth control, many other members of the laity -- disagree with it.

But the cynical manipulation of the issue by politicians, mostly Republicans, deserves no respect. They seek to drive another wedge between the nation and the president they seek to defeat, and another excuse to try to reverse necessary, broader health-care reforms in the guise of defending religious liberty.

The same sort of opportunism informed Republican opposition to the budget the President proposed last week. GOP leaders in Congress and presidential candidates immediately declared it dead on arrival, not even worth talking about.

What's so unthinkable in the plan? Its enhanced investment in job-creating repairs of roads and schools, and in alternative-energy programs? Its incentives to private businesses to preserve and expand manufacturing jobs in this country? Its increased aid to college students and community colleges and research?

Well, no. Republican lawmakers can't abide the notion that the wealthiest Americans and banks should pay more, not less, in taxes to help balance the budget. That's off the table. Their solution is austerity beyond the cuts in discretionary and defense spending the President proposes, including slashes in the nation's social safety net, even if that would throttle economic recovery here as it has in Europe.

And after they advance such nonnegotiable principles, Republicans accuse the President of making a political document out of the budget they refuse to consider as a basis for legislation.

It's true that Mr. Obama's budget doesn't focus enough on long-term debt and deficit reduction, although that's less urgent at the moment than sustained economic growth. It addresses reform of entitlement programs, especially Medicare but also Social Security, too much at the margins.

It includes some bogus gimmicks. Comprehensive tax reform evidently must wait until next year.

But what incentive does Mr. Obama have to administer distasteful medicine in an election year, when his opponents are offering tax cuts and similar fantasies, and would surely assail any White House proposal for fiscal responsibility? It doesn't help that timid Senate Democrats don't want to engage these issues either.

Republican lawmakers were smart enough not to try again to block a temporary extension of the payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans, mostly middle-class, and of federal unemployment benefits. The negative response from voters they endured in December was enough to persuade them not to pursue similar obstructionism now, two months closer to Election Day.

The compromise reached last week isn't great. It increases the deficit by $100 billion, because it includes neither spending cuts nor higher taxes.

But at least it shows that opposition lawmakers will not deny the President something he wants if it also gets them something they want, such as brighter re-election prospects. That isn't the best basis for negotiations, but it appears to be the best Mr. Obama can expect for the foreseeable future, which runs through November.

David Kushma is editor of The Blade.

Contact him at: dkushma@theblade.com