The University of Notre Dame has announced this years commencement speaker...President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of Notre Dame’s 164th University Commencement Ceremony at 2 p.m. May 17 (Sunday) in the Joyce Center on campus.

Mr. Obama will be the ninth U.S. president to be awarded an honorary degree by the University and the sixth to be the Commencement speaker.

You would think that many affiliated with Notre Dame would be honored to have the President give the commencement speech. But you would be wrong.

There have been open letters and even petitions to stop Obama from speaking. Why? Because he is pro-choice.

Who have they had speak in the past? No less that the great American hero Ronald Reagan.

Now, Ronnie was anti-abortion. Of course, he was pro-death penalty, pro-war, and called Voting Rights Act of 1965 "humiliating to South".

Hell, Reagan was willing to help fight hunger when his USDA tried to declare ketchup as a vegetable. OK...they actually did it to save money on free lunches for poorer kids so...bad example.

Wait. Isn't the Catholic Church supposed to support all life? So if Reagan was pro-war and pro-death penalty...he wasn't exactly pro-life now was he?

See, contrary to what anti-abortion folk believe...if you want to validly call yourself pro-life you have to literally be pro-life...not simply anti-abortion. If you aren't against war and the death penalty...you aren't pro-life. You are just anti-abortion.

So were these same people protesting when Reagan was invited to speak? Hell no.

Doesn't the Catholic Church ostensibly support social justice? In fact, the website for the Office for Social Justice of St. Paul and Minneapolis outlines the beliefs.

Economic Justice

The economy must serve people, not the other way around. All workers have a right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, and to safe working conditions. They also have a fundamental right to organize and join unions. People have a right to economic initiative and private property, but these rights have limits. No one is allowed to amass excessive wealth when others lack the basic necessities of life.

Note that last sentence. That one kinda contradicts Reagan's trickle-down economics. Also, workers have a right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, and to safe working conditions. But Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Whoops.

Let's try another speaker. Elizabeth Dole.

Dole supports use of federal death penalty...so I guess she isn't pro-life either. Nevermind.

OK. Moving on. How about J. Edgar Hoover?

Hoover created COINTELPRO which targeted individuals and organizations Hoover didn't like (MLK, Black Panthers, anti-war protesters, etc.). Hoover's FBI infiltrated the organizations with undercover agents to goad the organizations into committing illegal actions. They also carried out burglaries, illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents and spreading false rumors. Nice, eh?

Hoover also hatched a devious plan on July 7, 1950:

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Let's go back to the Office for Social Justice of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Hoover's actions would kind of go against the following:

Role of Government and Subsidiarity

The state has a positive moral function. It is an instrument to promote human dignity, protect human rights, and build the common good. All people have a right and a responsibility to participate in political institutions so that government can achieve its proper goals.

Participation

All people have a right to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society. It is a fundamental demand of justice and a requirement for human dignity that all people be assured a minimum level of participation in the community. It is wrong for a person or a group to be excluded unfairly or to be unable to participate in society.

You see, when 12,000 people are jailed they can't exactly participate in political institutions or the community.

So why exactly are these people complaining about Obama?

Oh yeah. He's a liberal.