White House priorities

I’ve posted before about the petition on the White House site to Officially recognize the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group. While sad it isn’t really something to pay attention to since anybody can start one of these petitions and even after publicity both pro and con it still only has a little over 3,000 signatures.

I bring this up today because there was this story.

The White House has removed a petition from its We the People Web site calling for singer Beyonce to be disinvited from performing the national anthem at President Obama’s inauguration.

The star and longtime Obama supporter has a $50 million sponsorship contract with PepsiCo. Public health advocates urged her to reconsider the deal last month, citing health issues linked to soft drinks.

So now we know what is beyond the pale for White House petitions. Catholics as a hate group, fine. Criticism of Beyonce, that can’t stand.

The irony is also very rich considering Michelle Obama’s food nanny state proclivities and her association with “public health advocates.”

A White House spokesperson told the Obama Foodarama blog that Beyonce’s performance at the inaugural is “not something the White House actually has jurisdiction over.”

Selecting performers is a function of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, not the White House. We the People’s terms of participation state that users cannot post “petitions that do not address the current or potential actions or policies of the federal government.”

For the Obama Administration, Catholics as a hate group did not meet the last criteria mentioned.

In other recent petition news the White House responded to a petition to make a Death Star to spur job creation. There was a rather humorous response in rejecting the idea. Although the real reason they declined is that they felt Planned Parenthood was doing a good enough job and a Death Star would be overkill.