Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the Catholic Church could have been one of Obamacare’s “cheerleaders” — but some of the mandates, such as the contraception requirements, meant Catholics were “being asked to violate” their beliefs. 
 
 “You have voiced your displeasure with certain aspects of it in terms of mandates for hospitals and so forth,” NBC's "Meet the Press" host David Gregory said in an interview aired Sunday. “What about the overall goal of it? Do you think it will ultimately prevail? Would you like it? Do you think it's important for the country that universal healthcare insurance is available?” 
 
 “Yup. And I'm glad you allow me to make that distinction, David,” the Archbishop of New York. “We bishops have been really kind of in a tough place because we're for universal, comprehensive, life-affirming healthcare. We, the bishops of the United States, can you believe it, in 1919 came out for more affordable, more comprehensive, more universal healthcare. That's how far back we go in this battle, okay?” 
 
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 “So we're not Johnny-come-latelies,” Dolan added. “We've been asking for reform in healthcare for a long time. So, we were kind of an early supporter in this. Where we started bristling and saying, ‘Uh-oh, first of all this isn't comprehensive, because it's excluding the undocumented immigrant and it's excluding the unborn baby,’ so we began to bristle at that.” 
 
 Secondly, “we said, ‘And wait a minute, we Catholics who are kind of among the pros when it comes to providing healthcare, do it because of our religious conviction, and because of the dictates of our conscience. And now we're being asked to violate some of those.’” 
 
 That’s when “we began to worry and draw back and say, ‘Mr. President, please, you're really kind of pushing aside some of your greatest supporters here. We want to be with you, we want to be strong. And if you keep doing this, we're not going to be able to be one of your cheerleaders.’” 
 
 And that, he said, “sadly is what happened.” 
 
 Read more about: Obamacare, Catholic Church, Timothy Dolan ||||| Rep. Mike Rogers on Sunday criticized the Obamacare website's security standards, saying it shows a "sheer level of incompetence." 
 
 The Michigan Republican told NBC’s “Meet the Press” the administration’s Sunday announcement about the website’s progress is “overstated." 
 
 “Have they made some progress? Yes,” he said. “They brought in some private sector folks to try and get the functionality up. It still doesn’t function right.” 
 
 Not only does the site still not function correctly, there are major security issues, Rogers said. 
 
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 “But here’s the most important part of this discussion that nobody talks about,” he said. “The security of this site and the private information does not meet even the minimal standards of the private sector. And that concerns me. I don’t care if you’re for it or against it, Republican or Democrat, we should not tolerate the sheer level of incompetence securing this site.” 
 
 But Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said the “administration has hit the big benchmarks they set out: 50,000 people at one time, 800,000 people a day. Look, this is going to take some time before it’s up and kicking and in full gear. I think what we have to look at is those states where you have well-functioning web sites, like California, like New York, like Kentucky. All of them are signing people up, all of them have a good mix of people.” 
 
 But as for his own state’s site, “Maryland’s a mess, there’s no doubt about it,” Van Hollen said. 
 
 Still, Van Hollen said, the question is “are we going to work together to fix these problems — and there will be additional problems — or will we do what our Republican colleagues want to do, to continue to just try and sabotage the entire effort, even though they don’t have an alternative.” 
 
 Read more about: Chris Van Hollen, Mike Rogers, Obamacare ||||| Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the Catholic Church has been “out-marketed” on gay marriage and has been “caricatured as being anti-gay.” 
 
 NBC’s “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked the Archbishop of New York in an interview that aired Sunday if the church is “losing the argument” on the issue of gay marriage. 
 
 “Well, I think maybe we've been out-marketed, sometimes,” Dolan replied. “We've been caricatured as being anti-gay. And as much as we'd say, ‘Wait a minute, we're pro marriage, we're pro traditional marriage, we're not anti anybody,’ I don't know. When you have forces like Hollywood, when you have forces like politicians, when you have forces like some opinion-molders that are behind it, it's a tough battle.” 
 
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 But the Catholic Church is “not going to give up on it,” he added. 
 
 “I do think to get back to your question though, David, you know, back in 1973 with Roe v. Wade, everybody said, ‘This is a foregone conclusion. In a couple years, this issue is going to go away. It's going to be back-burnered,’” Dolan said. “To this day, it remains probably the most divisive issue in American politics. And as you look at some of the changing attitudes, you say, ‘Wow, we're beginning to affect the young with the pro-life message.’” 
 
 “So you don't think the gay marriage debate is over, a settled question?” Gregory asked. 
 
 “I don't think it's over,” Dolan replied. “No. I don't think it is.“ 
 
 Read more about: Gay Rights, Gay Marriage, Catholic Church, Timothy Dolan ||||| Former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon on Sunday said it is “reckless” of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to refuse to sign the U.S.-Afghan security agreement. 
 
 “President Karzai should go ahead and sign the agreement,” Donilon said on ABC’s “This Week.” 
 
 “It’s in Afghanistan’s interests and I think it’s in our interests,” he said. “That said, his refusal to sign at this point I think is reckless. I think it’s reckless in terms of Afghanistan, and I think it also adversely impacts our ability to plan coherently and comprehensively for post-2014.” 
 
 “If the United States doesn't have a bilateral security arrangement with Afghanistan that supports its troop presence there and provides the kinds of protections that we need, the United States cannot be present in Afghanistan after December 31st, 2014,” he said. “And this has cascading effects. If the United States isn't there, NATO allies won't be there, because NATO allies rely on the capabilities that the United States provides. We won't have the same kind of support for the Afghan national security forces.” 
 
 (Sunday Shows in 90 seconds: Iran, NSA, Obamacare) 
 
 At the end of the day, Donilon said, “it would be better to have continued support for the Afghan national forces and have a small counter-terrorism presence in Afghanistan.” 
 
 But the U.S., he said, has a lot of options for protecting its interests in the region. 
 
 “He should go ahead and sign the agreement, and if he does not, I think the United States will move towards the so-called Option B, and by the way, the United States has a lot of options with respect to being able to pursue its interests,” Donilon said. 
 
 Read more about: Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, Tom Donilon ||||| Former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon on Sunday called the Iran nuclear deal “a very solid achievement" for the Obama administration.” 
 
 “It's going to have to be rolled back, the Iranian program...for there to be a comprehensive deal at the end of the six-month negotiation,” Donilon said on ABC’s “This Week.” “But the interim steps are quite significant. And I think positive in this way, they freeze the program in place." 
 
 The deal, he said, is a “very good foundation as a backdrop against which to have comprehensive negotiations.” 
 
 (Sunday Shows in 90 seconds: Iran, NSA, Obamacare) 
 
 “I think it's a very solid achievement by Secretary [of State John] Kerry and President Obama and the administration,” Donilon said. “And, again, I think a very solid basis on which to go forward.” 
 
 Host George Stephanopoulos also asked Donilon to address President Barack Obama’s standing with other world leaders in the wake of the deal. 
 
 “You know, one of the things we've seen though is that it has created a lot of upset, not only in Israel, but also among some other allies in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia,” Stephanopoulos said. “And it feeds into a general perception among some of our adversaries, like Vladimir Putin, like the Saudis, that the president has been vacillating and weak. How do you respond to that?” 
 
 “I don't see how in this case you can call the president vacillating and weak,” Donilon replied. “I mean, how did we get here with respect to Iran? We got here through a U.S.-led, very tough isolation and pressure campaign.” 
 
 “There is a direct line here between the sanctions, [Hassan] Rouhani's election, and their coming to the table,” he said. “Why? Because we put tremendous pressure on the Iranian economy. We've also isolated the Iranians politically. And we've had a fairly major defense build-up in the region to indicate to the Iranians that all options are on the table.” 
 
 This is a result of the “U.S. pressure campaign to bring the Iranians to the table,” he said. And “the test now is whether or not the Iranians can do the things they need to do to assure the United States and international community they don't have a dangerous program.” 
 
 Read more about: Iran, Tom Donilon
– The Catholic Church may be "pro-traditional marriage," but it's "not anti-anybody," Cardinal Timothy Dolan said today on NBC's Meet the Press. The church has simply "been out-marketed" when it comes to the issue of gay marriage, and "caricatured as being anti-gay," the Archbishop of New York continued. "When you have forces like Hollywood, when you have forces like politicians, when you have forces like some opinion-molders that are behind it, it's a tough battle." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, per Politico: Dolan also said the Church could have been a "cheerleader" for ObamaCare, seeing as Catholic bishops are "for universal, comprehensive, life-affirming healthcare." The problem? The Affordable Care Act "isn't comprehensive, because it's excluding the undocumented immigrant and it's excluding the unborn baby." Speaking of ObamaCare, Rep. Mike Rogers said on the same program that Healthcare.gov's security standards show a "sheer level of incompetence." Specifically, he claimed, "The security of this site and the private information does not meet even the minimal standards of the private sector." On ABC's This Week, former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon weighed in on the Iran nuclear deal ("a very solid achievement") and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign the US-Afghan security agreement ("reckless"). And on CNN's State of the Union, Howard Dean and Rick Santorum sparred over ObamaCare. At one point, Santorum asked, "Is the president competent to do his job?" and Dean responded that though ObamaCare is not "ideal," "I fail to see how it has anything to do with the president’s competence. I lose my patience with this nonsense."