Year End Review: Washington | National Catholic Reporter

Year End Review: Washington | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: You can't have it both ways.  Kerry can't be having a great year while the boss he serves is having a bad one.  As far as the ACA - he essentially got the bishops to shut up on birth control for the most part and while the officer about 4 levels below him (the CMS CTO) made a mess of the web site roll out and has been fired - keep in mind that the site is up and running and people are signing up for insurance - including in states that have no connection to the US site.  (note that there would be no US website if states had not been given a choice on doing their own).  Obama did not actually have one grand bargain with Congress - he had two. The first and most significant was enactment of the ATRA - which exactly enacted the tax provisions he ran on in 2008.  The second was a budget deal that Boehner and Ryan supported - much to the chagrin of Tea Party Republicans.  One can argue that no deal should ever be made with such people who represent a constituency that is very open about the fact that they consider Obama illegimate because of his race.  I care not what such yahoos think.