Phoning it In

Rick -- I definitely think people of good will can disagree on these issues.  And I definitely think you are a person of good will.  :-)  My point is not that this administration is not walking the walk on abortion.  I think it is, for the reasons you point to in your post.  My point is that the Culture of Life, as distinct from a narrow anti-abortion platform, means that the Catholic tradition is concerned with far more than abortion. 

Yes, people can disagree about a particular war, but is there any evidence that this administration treated the process of deciding to go to war with the moral seriousness required by Catholic teachings?  Or did they instead, as the Downing Street Memo said, fix the evidence to reach the policy conclusions they already desired?

Yes, people can disagree about the application of the death penalty in extreme cases, but this appears to be a man who has never met an execution he didn't like in a state that executes more than any other.  (Remember how he mocked Karla Faye Tucker's plea for clemency?)  I suppose she, and the many other defendants executed under his watch, don't count as a one of the "inconvenient" lives he was talking about in his comments. 

And, yes, reasonable people can disagree about the tax structure that best serves the common good, but do you honestly believe that when Bush and his advisors are discussing tax policy (or any other policy, for that matter), they really sit there and grapple with tough questions about how the "strong" can best serve the "weak"?

I don't object to Bush claiming credit for his anti-abortion policies, which are, I agree, quite different than those that would have been put in place by a democratic administration.  I simply object to his appropriation of the rhetoric of the Culture of Life when he, like the Democrats, refuses to be challenged by its breadth and depth.