September 4, 2012
If you want to know why the Obama administration decided to pick a fight with the Catholic Church, read the New York Times' profile of Valerie Jarrett. I confess I took an almost instant disliking to Jarrett the first time I heard her interviewed. Her comments reminded me of a visit I paid to the southside of Chicago and some of the faux intellectuals I met there, the kind of people who will chase any intellectual theory provided it is novel. It was the one and only time in my life I heard someone defend Stalin. It was unfair of me to conflate that experience with my first impression of Jarrett, to be sure, but if the Times article is to be believed, it was prescient too.
