While you may have spent Wednesday preparing for Thanksgiving, Jeb Bush was busy on Twitter spreading controversy-stirring conspiracy theories about President Obama on Twitter. Unfortunately these stubborn little things called facts got in the way of his criticism.
Why would our President close our Embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 27, 2013Bush fell in line with a growing Republican-created non-controversy about the Obama administration "closing" the embassy to the Vatican. According to Talking Points Memo, the National Republican Senatorial Committee even set up an apparently now deleted web page attacking the administration for the closure, and calling it, "just the latest anti-religion pursuit of this Administration, a slap in the face to Catholic-Americans around the country that weakens America's position as a global leader."
As it turns out the embassy is not being closed. It's just being relocated to nicer digs.
As there isn't actually much room in the Vatican, all foreign embassies to the Holy See are located in Rome. A State Department spokesman called the current embassy "decidedly ugly, slab-sided, unprepossessing building in Rome." The embassy will now be located on the same ground as America's Italian embassy in Rome, though it will have its own building and entrance. No staff reductions are being made. Other countries, like the UK and Israel also have co-lated Italian and Vatican embassies.
The move is being made for economic and security reasons. Republicans love saving money, but apparently the $1.4 million-a-year being save by the move doesn't please Bush.
For what its worth, a Vatican source told CNN that the move was "not the end of the world."
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