Talk:Douglas Kmiec

Removed from article

Colbert Report appearance

Kmiec appeared on the highly popular television show The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert, and the video clip of the Colbert-Kmiec conversation quickly became popular for its proposal.

View on family

Kmiec has strongly defended the family as the first vital cell of civilization. His book, Cease-fire on the Family, in the 1990s was an early call for families to avoid getting caught up in the focus on law and politics which he called a "fool's game," when personal attention to the upbringing of one's own children would reap more lasting and direct benefit. Early in the book, Kmiec writes:

Family expectation must match family reality. Families must actually perform their intended function as a source of love and emotional support, respect for others, and the taking of responsibility for actions. Our cultural divisions have been unduly "nationalized," and thus artificially magnified, either through the media or Congressional legislation or Supreme Court opinion. These cultural tensions have become near unbearable as one faction or another has sought to enact morality into law, as if legal enactment or judicial pronouncement would somehow rectify moral shortcoming. While there is always some necessary overlap between law and morality, as law implicitly involves a moral claim by its command of obedience, few of us seem to fully appreciate any longer that law cannot force moral consensus or instill virtue or character.

Why have these been removed? Notability is not a limitation on article content.  Skomorokh  16:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Without proper context, its as significant as saying that Kmiec loves dogs. Call it a weight problem if you'd like.--Tznkai (talk) 16:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

To do

• Infobox for various awards?
• Research writings
• Decide on chronological or subject-matter organization.
• Fill in gaps in chronology, personal life matters.
• He's Catholic, this is part of his significance, put it somewhere.
• Just confirmed by the Senate as Ambassador to Malta, no longer simply nominated

--Tznkai (talk) 17:10, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Another To Do, guys ... put in a pronunciation for his surname. ACW (talk) 17:50, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Information that has been removed due to sourcing issues

I have removed the following the information from the article because the sources do not support it (following WP:BLP). We may be able to find other sources that do support it, however, so I am placing it on the talk page. Awadewit (talk) 16:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• Thinking that conscientious American Catholics were exploring the same ethical issues raised by the 2008 election as he was, Kmiec wrote, the book Can A Catholic Support Him?: Asking the Big Question About Barack Obama, which was published nationally by the Overlook Press/ Penguin Group. The book became the centerpiece of the Catholics for Obama effort. - To be clear - the part that is under dispute is the first bit and last bit. We might be able to source Kmiec's motivation from the book itself, but we need a good source on "the centerpiece of the Catholics for Obama effort" (it was previously sourced to an unreliable blog). Awadewit (talk) 16:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• Upon searching LexisNexis and Access World News (News Bank) for the Kmiec's motivation for the writing of the book, I did not find any verification for the above material. I have included in the article what I did find. We just need to find a source for the "centerpiece" bit (if indeed that is true). Awadewit (talk) 01:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• The campaign announced that Kmiec would tour the country as a campaign surrogate for Barack Obama as part of the Faith, Family and Values Tour with evangelical author Donald Miller and former Indiana Congressman pro-life Democrat Tim Roemer - I've removed this from the article because the source link here, is broken. Perhaps we can try and find another source. Awadewit (talk) 16:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• I've found a source for the tour and added it. Awadewit (talk) 01:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• and the inaugural Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the National Constitution Center (with Yale's Akhil Amar) - I didn't see this fact in either of the two basic biographical sources used in the article. Awadewit (talk) 17:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• I didn't find this in a quick search of LexisNexis, Access World News/News bank, or Google News. However, a longer search may uncover something. Awadewit (talk) 01:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Along with Professor Mary Ann Glendon of the Harvard Law School, Kmiec was named by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to head the Romney for President Committee on the Courts and the Constitution in 2007. When Glendon was named to be Ambassador to the Vatican by President Bush, Kmiec continued as chair of the Romney committee and before the Governor withdrew from the race, Kmiec had substantial success attracting a long list of leading conservative lawyers to Romney's side. Kmiec praised Romney for addressing the intra-party criticism of Romney's Mormon Faith and helped in the formulation of Romney's major address on the subject. - We need sources for this information. Awadewit (talk) 17:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• The controversy made news in Catholic communities and blogs before making mainstream press. - The controversy is the denial of Communion. We need a source for this. Awadewit (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• Kmiec had initially attempted to keep the entire incident confidential so as not to embarrass the Church, mentioning it only to his Pastor emeritus at Our Lady of Malibu in Malibu, California and to a priest friend in the Dominican House in Washington, D.C., since the priest involved was also a member of that religious order. - We need to find a source for this information. Awadewit (talk) 18:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Additional concerns

• The entire "Obama endorsement" section is sourced to articles by Kmiec himself. We need to find some secondary sources that covered his endorsement. Awadewit (talk) 17:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• I've added a couple but this clearly needs much more work. A survey needs to be done of the newspaper coverage at the time to see what the reaction was. Awadewit (talk) 18:00, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• The article clearly needs more secondary sources on the Obama book. Awadewit (talk) 19:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• We need a page number for this statement: After review, Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles called the action "shameful and indefensible" and asked the priest to write a letter apology to Kmiec - I would feel better if this were sourced to something other than Kmiec's book, anyway. Awadewit (talk) 19:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

====Concerns raised by the subject related to the resignation additions============

• A number of matters a volunteer biographer would likely wish to

correct on this entry. Obviously, as the subject, I am not disinterested, so a volunteer editor should check matters and rephrase as needed to make as objective as possible. What I think you will agree is that what has been recently added is so incomplete as to be inaccurate. > > first, a quick factual point, two spots mentioning length of service > as USambassador are not accurate; it is July 2009 - August 2011 or two years. > > second, The basis for resignation was not conceded to be "unofficial activities," rather the inspector general argued that the Ambassador spent too much time promoting President Obama's inter-faith initiative, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/13/opinion/la-oe-0413-rutten-20110413, > > what the IG controversially claimed was an "outside activity" could therefore be argued to undermine President Obama's presidential authority to define what was and was not appropriate for an ambassador to pursue within his diplomatic mission.

The consequence of the IG statement can be argued to harm the bilateral relationship; see the comments of the leaders and people of Malta where the work of the embassy under my direction seemed to be very well received > > http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110416/local/kmiec.360608 > > and effective, > > http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/malta-hearts-kmiec, > and http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/kmiec-faces-friendly-fire,

an example of the kind of faith reference regularly made by me as Ambassador can be seen in this video of his opening of the Anne Frank exhibition in Malta; I authorized as the Ambassador the sponsorship of this exhibit as a way of remembering that the hate that animated the holocaust still must be contended with in foreign policy. http://www.youtube.com/user/usembmalta

a biographer may wish to note that the resignation was not requested.

Why resign?

as a matter of principle opposing the so-called "God gap" in the State Department

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2011/04/kmiecs-gospel-falls-flat-in-foggy-bottom.php

In addition, there may have been a serious constitutional battle lingering beneath these events that relates to an opinion written by myself as head of OLC that limits the OIG to matters of fraud, waste and abuse and not second-guessing the discretion of the president to define the job description of someone working for him.

In my view, OIG has no statutory authority to contradict the assignments of the president; this view is not shared by OIG, but as the scholarly materials below suggest, the OIG over 20 years has been unsuccessful in having Congress expand their power. > > http://books.google.com/books? id=xQChprzbMlwC&q=kmiec+1989+OLC+opinion&dq=kmiec+1989+OLC+opinion&hl=en&ei=Xt6sTe m-EcPciAKrtfnYDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFQQ6AEwCQ > > http://books.google.com/books? id=A6HcngNBFicC&pg=PA138&dq=kmiec+1989+OLC+opinion&hl=en&ei=Xt6sTem- EcPciAKrtfnYDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q= kmiec%201989%20OLC%20opinion&f=false > Formally, I did offer to resign, rather than resign outright; this distinction was lost in the media, and maybe the White House, itself, but to me it is important both to show respect to the president as the one who appointed me and to both my government and the host government so that neither the president nor Malta would be disadvantaged by being represented by an ambassador who had been criticized, rightly or wrongly, for making reference to his faith in writing and speaking.

> http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-malta-ambassador- 20110417,0,6751408.story > > > Thank you for considering these suggestions. >