While some are calling yesterday’s change of policy with regard to contraception coverage a win-win for both the Catholic church and the Obama administration, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops does not see this as a win. Instead, they see it as one small little step, and they are pressing for much, much more.

The first amendment’s protection of religious liberty is not a license for religious organizations or individuals to disregard any law or regulation they don’t like. If the White House wants to end this fight, that’s the argument they’re going to have to make to the public. Instead, they have allowed the USCCB to set the terms of the debate, and the USCCB is quite happy to continue doing so.

This isn’t over, folks. Not by a long shot.

A New Washington Post/ABC News poll asked Americans “What is the single most important issue in your choice for president?” The poll found that the economy or jobs dominated the responses with 51 percent. No other issue came close to breaking double digits.

The lead Washington Post editorial noted (and excused) the Fed’s complete failure to understand the dangers posed by the housing bubble (the economy is soooo complicated) and then somehow used this failure as an argument against its housing proposals. The Fed’s main housing proposals were that Fannie and Freddie should make it easier for underwater homeowners to refinance and also that they should look to convert some of their foreclosed properties to rental units.

The Washington Post used a front page, above the fold article, to complain that Congress and President Obama had not done as much as it would have liked to reduce the deficit. What the Post failed to reports is that many people around Washington and across the country applauded this failure as a great victory.

Washington Post columnist correctly notes that OECD nations provide equal or better health care but at a fraction of the cost paid by the US. But he then ignores the obvious conclusion — that we should adopt one of their proven systems — and instead claims that an unproven and unlikely scheme using vouchers to private insurers would work.

Sadly (well, not really, but we’re in Village-narrative land with this post, so) the Stupid Debt Super-Committee won’t reach agreement by its “deadline” of this coming Wednesday. As part of its contribution to stoke the crisis narrative in Village Washington, enabling Very Serious People to pretend their concern about the Stupid-Committee actually matters in a nation otherwise beset by record income inequality, vast unemployment, continuing foreclosures, soaring, unforgivable and undischargeable student debt as well as widespread hunger and poverty, the online edition of The Washington Post (WaPo0) has prominently displayed on its digital front page a Deadline Clock.

The failure of the Super Committee will not guarantee the protection of our social safety net. This is, by my count, at least President Obama’s fourth attempt to get a “grand bargain” to cut entitlements, so there is no reason to believe he will stop trying now. But the failure of the Super Committee would push any new attempts to get a bipartisan “grand bargain” into next year; and as the 2012 election gets closer, the possibility that both parties will agree on anything becomes even more remote.

Cherubic torture fanboy Marc Thiessen does not like people talking smack about his weekend hobby and he uses the valuable space given to him by genocidal maniac enabler Fred Hiatt to continue to argue that even though “waterboarding can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage and death” it’s totally cool when we do it because …. U-S-A! U-S-A!

The government of the District of Colombia has launched a new campaign for statehood. The new campaign will include ads around the city directed at tourists and a new website, StatehoodDC.com. As a DC resident, I support it, because I support the idea of “no taxation without representation.”

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson can’t find the actual data on what’s driving the deficits and how to address them, so he concocts a “centrist” position that, surprise, calls for cuts to “entitlements” and programs that matter to the folks hit hardest by the recession.