Indeed the only thing that he will read are the other issues and then claim that he almost completely has implemented and supported the Church's social agenda.
You’re exactly right. By adding all of these other issues, the bishops are providing cover to pro-abortion politicians, especially Catholic ones. I can easily imagine Obama implementing all of the policies that the bishops are calling for except for the ones that protect human life and promote marriage.
While it’s good to see the bishops vigorously upholding the right to life, they aren’t going to be able to do so effectively, at least in the political arena, until they dump this whole “seamless garment” theory, which insists that Catholics must always consider the abortion issue in the context of a host of other issues, only a few of which concern the right to life. The “voter’s guides” that the bishops have issued for the last several presidential elections have been particularly disappointing since with the exception of their condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research, they were quite similar to the Democrat Party’s platform. During this past election there were some so-called Catholic groups which claimed that the agenda of the Democrats mirrors the teachings of the Catholic Church on social justice. Never mind that it’s not logical or correct to say that someone who would deny the right to the weakest members of society—the unborn—can be said to be advancing social justice. But the fact that bishops have so relentlessly promoted liberal causes and issues allowed these pro-abortion Catholics to hold themselves up as icons of social justice even as they dissented from one of the Church’s most serious moral teachings.
I hope that the bishops hold firm when Obama begins expanding abortion rights and that they don’t end up caving in and going silent when he starts implementing the parts of his agenda which they approve.