Mark: I would have thought that it was the other way around on the "problematic" score, no? If Bush is looking for electoral support, wouldn't it be more advantageous to make a public statement about the matter, rather than making what looks like a rather innocuous comment to a Vatican official in private? (About which, of course, he was perfectly accurate.) Or is your suggestion that if he does so openly then at least we know what he's up to? I suppose were Bush to make public a criticism of the Catholic bishops he might risk alienating Catholic voters? (But we should all be aware that an attempt to influence Catholic voters in America by appealing to a Vatican official in private is essentially futile.)
This might be a mountain being made into a molehill. Richard Dougherty ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Mark Tushnet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 15:43:05 -0400 >I have the feeling that this thread may have played itself out, but one >matter hasn't come up -- whether there's a difference between a public >statement soliciting support from religious leaders, etc., and a private >conversation in which such support is solicited (and whether, in a world >of leaks, such a distinction is anything close to coherent). I simply >report my intuition that the public statements are lower on the >"problematic" scale than the private conversation (which is not to say >that either one is high on that scale). > >_______________________________________________ >To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see >http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw > _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
