In Argentina during the late 1940s, fascist ruler Juan Peron’s wife Evita had a cunning way to win political support.
She would go on the radio and shower listeners with gifts, but not at her or the government’s expense. Evita would announce that Pedro’s Hardware Store had agreed to give free washing machines to the first 50 workers who asked for them.The storeowner had made no such agreement, nor was even consulted. But when a mob of “shirtless” Peronistas arrived demanding the free goodies Evita promised, most owners were too frightened to call the first lady a liar or risk having their store ransacked, torched, or targeted for political retaliation by refusing.
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Last Friday President Barack Obama offered the Roman Catholic Church what he called an “accommodation . . . not a compromise” on Obamacare’s requirement that all employer health insurance must provide female workers with free birth control and abortion-inducing drugs.President Obama, in what his spokespeople call “balancing” the (constitutional) right to practice one’s religion with the (non-constitutional) “right” of women to receive free anti-reproductive medication, offered a very Evita-like accommodation.
— Lowell Ponte, Feb. 14 Newsmax column