Kathleen Sebelius: Under the Bus?

Looks like the White House is trying to walk back on the decision to require Catholic charities to cover birth control in their health insurance plans:

“There are conversations right now to arrange a meeting to talk with folks about how this policy can be nuanced,” said Pastor Joel C. Hunter, a Florida megachurch pastor who has grown personally close to Obama and advised his White House on religious issues. “This is so fixable, and we just want to get into the conversation.”

Hunter’s comments followed a statement by David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama’s reelection campaign, who indicated on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday that the White House might be open to a compromise on the matter.

“We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions,” he said.

Axelrod — if nobody else on Team Obama — has to know how dangerous it is to mess with 77 million Catholics on an issue on conscience. Besides, there was no “right” to free contraceptives before ObamaCare simply dictated one into existence.

The quicker the White House can figure out a way to back down, the better for it.