After President Obama’s tough speech today on the House Republican budget, bloggers on the left lauded his critique, and those on right called his speech hallow.

Townhall.com's Guy Benson, a conservative, called the speech "Obama's worst speech yet."

"Today we witnessed something truly remarkable. Barack Obama managed to out-do himself by uncorking what very well may have been the most dishonest, demagogic, and bitterly partisan speech of his presidency."

Conservative blogger Nash Keune of The Corner says that Obama wildly misinterpreted and misrepresented the House Republican budget.

•    The president accused the House Budget Committee of breaking the Budget Control Act agreement by allocating $1.028 trillion for discretionary spending, $19 billion (or 1.8 percent) below the BCA cap. But, as Speaker Boehner noted a few weeks ago, according to Webster’s Dictionary a “cap” indicates “an upper limit” or “ceiling.” Apparently some interpreted this BCA maximum spending level as a minimum.

•    Obama said that, if the House budget passed, by the middle of the century we would have to cut spending on non-military discretionary spending (characterized as teaching, law enforcement, etc.) by 95 percent by the middle of the century, assuming that cuts are spread evenly. But this is not what the Ryan budget proposes. The House Budget details specific cuts which can be made to achieve its overall budgetary target.

•    The Ryan-Wyden Medicare plan “is a bad idea and it will ultimately end Medicare as we know it,” according to the president. Of course, this prediction is recycled from last year, even though it was named the “Lie of the Year” by Politifact. And, as Yuval Levin pointed out, the new Ryan budget is even less vulnerable to this charge than it was last year.”

(Note: What was Politifact's Lie of the Year was "Republicans voted to end Medicare," not with the additional qualifier "as we know it" -- which is an important distinction.)

On the left side, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine argues that Obama’s speech tied Mitt Romney to the House Republican budget plan, which will frame the elections as a choice of priorities:

“Do Americans really want to undergo the fiscal pain that would be required in order to maintain the low tax rates demanded by Republicans? He has every reason to believe the answer is no...The Republican strategy has real strengths. The party’s sheer bloody-minded refusal to compromise, and its devotion to ever more radical policy agendas, has helped it to shift the terms of the debate steadily rightward. Even keeping tax rates at Clinton-era levels is now a position too left-wing for Democrats to advocate.”

Igor Volsky, of left-leaning Think Progress agrees with Obama -- saying the GOP budget would end Medicare as we know it.

“As a result, under their budget, CBO projects that average spending would rise to only $7,400 in 2030 and to only $11,100 in 2050. Since the Republican budget would convert Medicare spending into vouchers, these dollar amounts would be the amounts of the vouchers, on average...The Republican budget never specifies how it plans to enforce its cap on Medicare spending and in the absence of any other enforcement mechanism, it’s likely that the cap would be enforced by limiting the amount of vouchers provided to beneficiaries. After all, we know that capping the vouchers is the clear policy goal of Republicans—we need look no further than the budget they proposed last year. The vouchers, therefore, would likely be capped at CBO’s projected spending per beneficiary under the Republican budget: $7,400 in 2030 and $11,100 in 2050. And since these amounts would be much lower than actual costs, beneficiaries would be left to pay the difference.”

Greg Sargent, a liberal opinion blogger for the Washington Post, outlines how be believed Obama squashed the House Republican budget:

“1.Obama cast the Romney-Ryan-GOP approach as not only radical and extreme, but as a proven failure.

2. Obama defended government activism as not just morally right, but as a way to faciliate economic growth

3. Obama framed the choice as one over who sacrifices to fix the deficit....

In sum, the political case he made is threefold: The GOP approach has already failed us. In its current, more radical iteration, it’s a departure from longtime consensus about government’s proper role in spurring economic growth and in guarding against the excesses of unfettered capitalism. And that addressing inequality and tax unfairness isn’t just morally right; it’s the only way to secure the country’s future.”

A group of Democratic women from Georgia, frustrated by recent bills limiting women’s reproductive rights, decided it was time to turn the tables on the men.

Their proposed bill would amend the state’s current abortion law by banning men from getting vasectomies.

“Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation of vasectomies, said Rep. Yasmin Neal, a Democrat from the Atlanta suburb of Jonesboro, in a video statement on Wednesday. “The day has come where men should face the same pressure and invasion of privacy that women have faced for years.

Neal, who spearheaded the bill, tells NBC News her intention is to “shin[e] light on the double standard women face in the United States.”

The anti-vasectomy bill borrows some language directly from H.B. 954, a recently drafted anti-abortion bill in Georgia that would punish abortions performed after the 20th week of pregnancy with prison sentences between one and 10 years.

But Neal is not the only Democrat trying to use a bit of humor -- or exaggeration –- to combat legislation limiting women’s reproductive rights.

Constance Johnson, a Democratic state senator in Oklahoma, believed a proposed bill  in her state -- which would require women to undergo an ultrasound and listen and see the fetus before an abortion -- went too far.

So she proposed that zygotes should have the same rights as adults, and added: “However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman's vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”

“My amendment seeks to draw attention to the absurdity, duplicity and lack of balance inherent in the policies of this state in regard to women,” Johnson wrote in a column for The Guardian. She later withdrew her amendment.

Opponents of abortion rights aren’t laughing.

Georgia State Rep. Doug McKillip (R), who sponsored the anti-abortion bill in the state, says Neal and her supporters are misunderstanding the issue.

McKillip -- who at the time of his interview with NBC News had not read Neal’s bill -- argues that his legislation is intended to protect life.

“This is a serious topic, not one that should be dealt with tongue-in-cheek,” he said.

“She’s making a mockery of the system,” added Genevieve Wilson, co-executive for Georgia Right for Life. “She’s ignoring the fact that children are being torn limb by limb.”

Neal counters, “We are very serious about proving a point, but also a serious bill was dropped.”

She continues, “I also find it ironic how a bill about men’s rights is ‘funny, tongue and cheek or humorous’ but a bill about women is ‘serious’ and needs to be debated, that's not fair.”

A recent ruling by the Obama administration -- requiring health insurance plans sponsored by religious-affiliated employers to provide contraception as part of their basic benefit package -- has fired up the blogosphere, drawing criticisms from both sides. Not surprisingly, many on the left are taking a firm position in supporting the administration's decision, while the right is opposing it.

Liberal blogger Steven Benen states that most Roman Catholics agree with the White House, citing a recent poll.

While the Obama administration's recent decision on contraception has caused a stir, it's worth pausing to appreciate the fact that most Roman Catholics already agree with the White House... Support, not surprisingly, is fairly broad among most groups. The only constituency opposed to the coverage in this poll was self-identified white evangelicals.

Igor Volsky at the liberal ThinkProgress suggests Catholic leaders and the GOP presidential candidates have “intentionally distorted” the issue and ignored the numbers that show most Catholic universities and hospitals already offer prescription insurance to cover contraception.

Conservatives are seeking a way to politically unite Republican voters around a social issue and portray the regulation as a big government intrusion into religious liberties. In reality, the mandate is modeled on existing rules in six states, exempts houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of faith, and offers employers a transitional period of one year to determine how best to comply with the rule.

Sarah Posner, a blogger at Religion Dispatches accuses three liberal Catholic pundits of wrongfully criticizing and misunderstanding the issue at hand.

First there was Michael Sean Winters, writing "J'Accuse!" in the National Catholic Reporter. "President Barack Obama," Winters wrote, "lost my vote yesterday when he declined to expand the exceedingly narrow conscience exemptions proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again."

Next up was E.J. Dionne, a good liberal Democrat (and Catholic), who used his Washington Post column to assail the President for how he "utterly botched the admittedly difficult question of how contraceptive services should be treated under the new health-care law."

Mark Shields, also Catholic, opined on the PBS NewsHour: "The fallout is cataclysmic for the White House and for the president."”

…

Did someone like Doug Kmiec help win Republican-leaning Catholic voters to Obama—or did Obama win them over himself? Will Winters and Shields and Dionne cause Catholic Democrats to flee Obama en masse? Maybe we'd know if any of the media outlets that published their opinions had asked a Catholic with ovaries.

On the right, meanwhile, Grace-Marie Turner at National Review Online, framed the ruling as an “assault on the Constitution and the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”

“..There is a war on religion from the Left, and it is very dangerous to the institutions that make our civil society function.

The Catholic Church historically has been a vital part of the safety net — providing aid for the poor, care for the sick, shelter and food for the homeless, and care for mothers in need, as a few examples.

The health-care law threatens to tear gaping holes in that safety net by forcing Catholic health plans to cover contraception, by denying funds to Catholic adoption agencies, and ultimately by forcing taxpayers — including Catholics — to fund abortion. 

And Robert Morrison, also at NRO, believes Americans must resist “any connection with the culture of death.”

This administration wants to compel these hospitals to join the culture of death by forcing them to provide insurance coverage for their employees for sterilization and drugs that cause abortions. In so doing, the Obama administration violates not only the conscience rights of practicing Catholics, but also the conscience rights of millions of “separated brethren,” protestants like us, who rely on Catholic health care to uphold the sanctity of life.

….

All Americans have a stake in this conflict. The Obama administration views pregnancy as a disease, and they want to force all of us to see it as a disease, too. They view this great human blessing as a curse. No wonder we are at odds with them over this menacing move.”

This “unconscionable” move — as New York’s Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan calls it– must be resisted by all Americans who value our God-given rights of conscience. On this vital question, there should be no separation among us. The Lord we serve came that we may have life and have it abundantly. We must resist any connection with the culture of death.