>> i think the president and bill daley made clear that after a very difficult year, bill submitted his resignation. the president reluctantly accepted it. he asked me to take his place. i think we're now in a period of, you know,... the economy is growing. we've got an awful lot of things going on in the world. >> schieffer: all right. the second question, are you saying that the president came out friday and did not chak his policy? >> i think what the president did on friday was provided the detail. the detail was always going to come. it was an important principle. it is an important principle that women have a right to get all forms of preventive health including contraceptives. the president has always been sensitive to the concerns of institutions that have religious objections. the solution that the president announced on friday is one that puts no institution that claims religious objection because it's related to the church, whether it's the catholic hospital or a catholic university, in a position where they either have to pay for it or provide benefits that they find objecti

of new york and -- the cardinal of new york and the president on this. >> bill daley is no longer the white house chief of staff. >> i noticed that. >> there was fighting within the white house staff when bill daley was on the outs. valerie jarrett has more clout than bill daley it does and she was on the women's side of this. >> the administration has conceded the essential argument of the church when it explicitly exclude anybody working in a church itself. >> that has always been the bar. >> i know but let me explain what i am trying to say. the premise is that if you work for the catholic church, you are exempt because it -- >> you work in the building. >> in church, it would be an assault on religion if you made the church dispense contraceptives. but it says that is only for a church. it does not apply to a church- affiliated charity. that is where the distinction -- it concedes the principle that you don't want to violate the conscience of the palaces of if you make a church give a custodian or any cook these kinds of services. it does not apply to a catholic hospital. on what

. >> politico and other news organizations have been reporting that bill daley, joe biden sat down with the cardinal archbishop of new york and the president to talk about this. the archbishop leaves thinking, well, i think i've got this settled, and then the thing explodes. >> bill daley is no longer the white house chief of staff. >> i have noticed that. >> there was fighting when he was on staff. valerie jarrett has more clout than bill daley does and valerie jarrett was on the women's side on this. >> the administration has conceded the central argument of the church went explicitly exclude -- when it explicitly excludes anybody working in the church itself. >> that has always been the bar. >> i know, but let me finish what i am trying to say. if you work for the church itself -- >> you work for the building -- work in the building. >> it would be an assault on religion to make a church spend for contraceptives. but they site it is only the church, it does not apply to a church-affiliated charity. it concedes the principle that you don't want to violate the conscience of catholicism

. >> you had the former chief of staff bill daley,ç catholic, j biden, catholic, men who had great politicalskills and they said that this was to create a fire storm with the independenter voters with swing states and pennsylvania and michigan and ohio, is this a gender war inside the white house? >> well, i was not involved in those conversations, what i can tell you is that the president felt strongly that preventive health services should not be determined how much money women have or who their employer is, or where they work, they should make their own determination. >> what about the fact that the vice president and bill daley and others advising the president were against the ri e original rule making, they warned this would happen. >> at the end of the day, this is a balance that respects the religious liberty of employers but doesn't let those employers determine this very important health benefit for women, nurses, university professors and janitors and lschools and universities should make their own determination, that is what we are doing today and it an important step forward. >>

i want to bring in father bill daley, visiting associate professor at notre dame law school, a friendnd frequent correspondent of mine on issues relating to the church. father bill, thank you for joining us this morning. >> it's a pleasure.not only did you get me up at 4:00 in the morning but i have an introduction of being a loser. >> being a loser doesn't necessarily mean you're on the wrong side. here's the question i want for you, just to get to the announcement yesterday by the president on this accommodation. what was your sense of the reaction to that, your own personal reaction, where you think the church will go, the statement by the bishops was sort of luke warm. >> statements later in the day actually became a little more heated and less luke warm. i think that there's -- look, the objection on thursday was that catholic institutions, such as the university of notre dame from which i am speaking to you would be forced to purchase insurance that was going to pri services that we regard as gravely immoral and unjust. that was the reality on thursday. on friday, the president'

bill daley the departing white house chief of staff said don't do this. >> sean: joe biden and bill daleyhleen sebelius argued the other way. >> this is the reason they said no, bart stupak only voted for obamacare when they got the executive order we're going to hands off religious institutions we're not going to have any kind of mandate. kathy velcamp who lost her seat because of the obamacare, she said, look, i was lied to. whole bunch of democrats feel betrayed and they look, it's one thing to do this but to do it differently. >> sean: it goes deeper because he insured catholic leaders? >> he broke his promise. if republicans can make this a larger argument about religious freedom and not just about contraception i think they have a winner on their hands, policy wise, they miscalculated this one, when you look what john boehner is going to take action and if he does, that bill will pass the house of religious freedom bill. think conservative democrats, big time. >> they should do it more often. >> here is what john boehner said. >> if the president does not rereverse verse the departm

bill daley, former chief of staff was against it and he's gone.ng. >> let's divide what you said in two parts. the second part, i agree with. there is tremendous in fighting and there should have been post-edict in fighting where they could have moderated or modified this rule and now i hope they can because this is a no brainer, this is a political weapon for the opponents of the obama administration. come november, this can cost him one, two points in the election. i think it's an awful, awful political blunder. the other one, whether or not it is emblematic of an insensitivity and try to ram through, i take a pass on that one. i think that whether or not it is symbolic is in the eye of the beholder. i prefer to just be a laser on this one and focus on the terrible decision that i hope they reverse. the sooner, the better to mitigate the political damage. this is doing. >> steve: how much on the lefty blogs? they're floating the results to some public opinion polls. apparently they did last summer that showed a majority of people, they're behind

battle, a bit of a battle of the sexes pitting the female advisers against people like joe biden and bill daley, you were have much against this. >> one of the interesting scenes from the story was when dolen came to the white house with the bishops and this vision of him in the black robe sitting with obama, and obama feeling awkward in the meeting. i want to open it up to the panel a bit. it seem like the white house under estimated the response that this decision would get from the religious, and catholic community and from the right. >> maybe glenn can speak to this, how could they not see the, obviously the bishops were lined up to tee off on this, if they were requiring religious groups to fund contraception that they do not believe in. why not come up with it initially. the catholic church does not have to violate their conscious, how do they not figure that out for the start? >> where were you during the health care debate? this is the same fight that they were having in congress. it the exact same people involved. the bishops play a huge role during the health care debate and the bisho

repro duketive rights and birth control and then a couple guys got involved, the chief of staff bill daley and the president said nice try, guys, i'm listening to these women here. and they never listened to the ramifications. >> yeah, it's being framed as a war against the church, and it's really res on ating a lot better than the war against christmas, which is kind of a fathom. but the war against the church, the people perceive it that way and that government is intruding. that has some weight to it, whereas contraceptives, that's something that 9% of people -- >> rick santorum talks about is it in terms of liberty. and also quite honestly the democratic party doesn't want to be seen as the secular party again. remember that happened to john kerry? so on fro -- two fronts politically, problems here. >> i think it may work to their advantage. they sort of began to fix it on friday. may have resolved it with is the liberal catholics. but did they pick it because they want to be seen as militant on women's rights and that sneps >> well, i don't know that they want to be seen as militant o

. >> joe biden reported to have gone to the president raising the red flag along with bill daley as politico reports. >>> as the white house looks for compromise, supporters say republicans are using it to score political points. >> it is time for the extreme right wing to stop playing political football with women's health. >> this latest ruling on women's access to reproductive health care, family planning, has been absolutely politicized in this what i call on-going war against women. >> it's astonishing to me that we are standing here defending the right of women to access contraception. it's just amazing. that there would be any question this is a settled e,clos. >> but there is a growing list of high profile democrats breaking ranks with the white house on this issue. several senators including john kerry, claire mccaskill and joe mansion want the administration to adjust the rule. >>> john boehner addressed the controversy during his address at cpac yesterday, suggested it strikes at the heart of the constitution. >> what is ultimately at stake here is a first amendment right and fund

and you have the chief of staff bill daley who by the way no longer works for president obama is there any connection there to the fact that he's not there and this issue this is not about contraception this is about religious liberty this is about you telling the catholic church what to do in defiance of their beliefs and so the media unfortunately really covered it the way the president was framing it not as a religious liberty issue. now i'm not exactly sure what media that woman over there has been watching because i've been watching a lot and there's that one single discussion that i've seen that's focused solely on women's health rather than religious liberty now the most that i've seen is a lone pundit trying to shift the conversation back to sanity back to a discussion about the fact that ninety eight percent of catholic women have used contraception at some point in their lives i still haven't seen anybody make sure to point out that this rule before was altered wouldn't apply to churches but to church run institutions hospitals huge universities that employ thousands of peopl

. >> sean: meanwhile, according to two new reports, two top advisors, joe biden, bill daley both catholicat his decision would be seeing an infringe on your religious freedom but would valuable catholic votes at risk. ed rollins and co-host of five, she deals with beckel kimberly guilfoyle. there are a couple of things that are interesting to me. one, biden and damely said don't do it. kathleen sebelius says, no you are going to lose the female vote. the presidential, it's decision was political. he didn't choose religious liberty and the first amendment. he chose either the female vote or voting for contraception. >> the liberals are basically to appease his supporters. his political pandering. he doesn't have any business getting into this area in particular. this is penalizing people's ability to respect the first amendment rights. its constitutional law issue and it could go all the way up to supreme court. >> sean: i don't see how it could win. it seems straightforward politically. >> it's a death knell to him. this one is going to backfire. catholics are one out of four voters. cons

reports of bill daley said to them, hey, this is a needless fight. we have tim kaine who is democratic committee is chair and running from this. we have casey, we have members of the house, democratic leadership john larsen of connecticut. we have lipinski all standing up and saying, don't do this. it will cause a huge problem for the president because he doesn't know how to get out of it. i thought his comments, she more afraid of barbara boxer and the pro-abortion crowd of the democratic senate caucus than he some of every cardinal, every bishop, every priest, every nun, every brother in the catholic church. his attitude that doesn't matter to me. i got to play indicate my left wing allies and not worry about what used to be bulwark of the democratic party, working class catholic house houldz holds, they are out. >> greta: lets let me look beyond the issue. this is an issue everybody is passionate about today. we're in february. what makes you think this has staying power come november and 2012. it seems like it's going forever but couple months, c

. >> bret: there was internal pushback from vice president biden and bill daley the former chief of staffers inside the white house. last word on this before we move to cpac. >> and from democratic senators from rick warren the pastor who gave obama inaugural. it shows the president listens. he was listening to his re-election team who told him this is an issue that could destroy him among catholic democrats who are the swing important voters in the battleground state; particularly, in the midwest. >> that is why the poll showed catholics support the president. >> the point is if people who feel intentionally enough about this -- intensely enough about this to change vote over this are in the majority. people have opinion but majority of others it could influence how they end up voting. but it will for those who are deeply offended. including rick warren and a lot of democratic senators who have come out against this. >> bret: some people who wanted to talk about this, as a bad thing, were at cpac today. conservative political action conference, including three candidates. >> we are not g

i mean apparently the internal discussion involved joe biden and bill daley when he was there on onee and other people on the other. in the democratic administration, this issue is always emotional and loud. i think it took them three or four days longer than was necessary to come up with it. i think it's a good compromise. it takes the politics off the table. more importantly because the republicans jumped on this so hard, it brings back for the republicans the culture wars of the '90s which is what drove a lot of women in the democratic column. i'm not sure politically it's all that bad. >> dana: eric -- >> can i respond to that? >> dana: of course. >> eric: the left is trying to spin it that way. obama is trying to spin it that way. kathleen sebelius is trying to spin it that way. nothing has changed. not a single thing has changed. the catholic church will still to v to provide the insurance coverage that provide for birth control contraceptives, morning after pills. it's simply a money transaction. they're not asking the insurance company to pay directly instead of going through

but what happened here is that this is a mushroom cloud that you had people like joe biden and bill daleyhat they had advised against it, and the white house was diving under the fern chrn and if it was such a great thing, why did obama himself feel like he had to walk into the what briefing room and walk it back. this was a political disaster for the administration and white catholic voters who are voting 15 points republican in the last three years. >> raffle, ralph. >> yes. >> let me explain it to you. he looks reasonable in the thing. people like the idea of having contraception in this country. and the thing that he now comes and says, okay, we fixed it. just the long range implications of this if anything are going to be favorable to the president. he came out looking reasonable. 28 states mandated it before and nobody said anything about it. >> well, james, the 28 states don't require religious organizations to provide insurance under penalty of a fine. that is apples and oranges. >> well, the religious institutions who were providing this before, but the president compromised and

you had interesting reporting that joe biden and bill daley said president obama should not go along with this. seems the white house gets involved in these culture war issues. you take professor gates in harvard, the times square mosque. what were those conversations like and how much will this hurt obama and the crucial swing states like ohio and pennsylvania that have a lot of catholic voters? >> if they don't handle this well, it will be a bad political thing for the president and democrats in the fall. you've seen some democrats turn against him on this issue. there's a possibility now that if the president engages the public and the country and the catholic leadership and reproductive freedom community, engages them in a wig dialogue how to solve a complicated issue, he can resolve it to his benefit. as of now, they handled it poorly. i don't see a way out of this short term. he's got to do it. it gives republicans a talking point about obama care and overreach intrusion from washington that has support not just to energize the base but reach out to a lot of independents and ca

we heard about this secret meeting that happened before all this broke between bill daley, biden and the president and the archbishop timothy dolan. they warned the president there would be a backlash. was this inevitable here? >> well, i'm of two minds on this. i think we probably were headed for this point simply because it feels like the politics of this going out the door weren't quite handled right. i think the president was very clear on what his intention was. given the position the catholic church has taken, there was never going to be an answer they were completely happy with. could this have been handled better in terms of how this was rolled out from the beginning? i think that may be why the pressure mounted despite the fact that many catholics like myself have said hey, this is the church is really out of step with where main line catholics are. the doctors who have come on board, the fact that 28 states already do this. there's evidence to suggest that the president's proposal here is not out of step at all with what's happening. again -- >> obviously, as you know, the