Rove: Obama’s Contraception Mandate Fight a Combination of Arrogance and Ideological Blinders

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: In my mind, it might have been an -- sort of, quote, an "accident," meaning HHS has got some people writing rules and they weren't thinking, or it was deliberate and sort of a -- a know it all and we're going to tell you what to do and we think this is the best. Which is it? Or something else?

KARL ROVE: Look, it's not -- it was not a political calculation that this is going to win us votes. It was an ideological commitment to doing what they think is right, regardless of the consequences. And we saw this start in the Affordable Care Act.

I mean, again, I repeat, there's a deliberate effort to say to religious hospitals and religious health institutions, You don't have a right to refuse to do something that violates your fundamental moral precept of support of life and in opposition to abortion!

We saw it when they said, Look, a religious school has to take anybody as a teacher or a faculty member. You don't have a right to say, as a religious institution, that people who share your faith ought to be teaching your schools. And the Supreme Court by a 9-0 decision said the Obama Justice Department was mistaken in its belief and that the Constitution guaranteed the freedom of religious institutions to do that!

And now we see it a third time. It is an ideological mindset that tramples on the right of religion because these are secular individuals, by and large, who have no respect for the fundamental importance of religious institutions in our society or the rights under the Constitution, the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, to freely express their religion and to encourage and call upon their members to live by the moral precepts of that church!

So I mean, look, this president is -- I love it! They said, Well, we're open to a compromise. What's the compromise? The compromise is, Well, we'll give you a certain amount of time, six months or a year, to figure out how you're going to do this. So yes, you got six months to a year to figure out how you're going to fundamentally violate your moral precepts! How -- how -- how outrageous is that?

VAN SUSTEREN: Is this -- and if I can sort of try to understand -- is this arrogance on the part of the administration, basically, Tough, we won, you're going to do it our way or we're not going to accommodate the sort of collective views in the country of people from all walks of life? Is that how you see it?

ROVE: I think that's a big part of it. I think also part of it is an ideological blindness that says, Look, we worship at the altar of, you know, reproductive rights. We -- you know, abortion, contraception, morning after pill -- these are more important than us respecting the Constitution's guarantee of the right of free expression of religion.

And we're going to define what your religion is. And anything that doesn't agree with us and our moral -- and our secular views, no matter how important its moral -- it is to your moral foundations, is out the window.

And yes, so it's a combination of arrogance and it's a combination of ideological blinders and it's a question of complete tone deafness. There are reports today that Bill Daley, outgoing chief of staff, said to them, Hey, don't do this. This is a needless fight. Look at it! We've got Joe Manchin of West Virginia. We've got Tim Kaine, who was Obama's Democratic National Committee chair and a Catholic running for the U.S. Senate in Virginia running like a scalded dog from this!

We got Bob Casey. We got -- we got one of the members of the House Democratic leadership, John Larson of Connecticut. We've got -- you know, we've got Lipinski of Illinois, all standing up, saying, Don't do this. This is wrong. And you know, we're -- this is going to cause a huge problem for the president, particularly since he doesn't seem to know how to get out of it.

And I don't think he wants to! I thought his comments today -- I mean, he is more afraid of Barbara Boxer and -- and -- and -- and the -- and the pro-abortion crowd in the Democratic Senate caucus that he visited here in the last day or so than he is of -- of every cardinal, every bishop, you know, every priest, every nun, every brother in the Catholic church!

I mean, his attitude is, That doesn't matter to me. I just got to go placate my left-wing allies, the secular left wing, not -- and not worry about, you know, what used to be the bulwark of the Democratic Party, working-class Catholic households. They're out!