Obama Continues to Deny Militant Pro-Abortion Record
Part One of Two

Editor's note. I hope you had a great weekend. I'd appreciate your comments at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

As is almost always the case, Mondays mean we have a lot to cover. Let's begin with silky-smooth Sen. Barack Obama.

After avoiding Fox News Sunday for a little over two years, the pro-abortion frontrunner for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination finally sat down with Chris Wallace, the program's host and a man who is the most fair and even-handed interviewer on television.

It is tempting to talk about other responses, but let's stick with abortion. Obama's calling card is Mr. Transcendent, the politician who will move us beyond politics as we know it. Obama insists that while others polarize and divide, he will unify and cohere.

For our purposes the only problem with that is it is almost impossible to be more pro-abortion than Obama or less a seeker of "common ground." That's his right.

What isn't okay is when critics point out that he has taken the most extreme positions possible for Obama to insist that this constitutes proof positive that his critics are dividers. And it is our fault if we allow him to get away with scoring "cheap political points" by attributing that very same behavior to others.

To be sure Obama does not like to be called out on any subject with which his earth-bound positions bear no resemblance to his lofty rhetoric. It's no surprise that there is an inverse relationship between Obama's commitment to the truth and his willingness to criticize people for pointing out his inconsistencies. The more he fibs the harsher he denies it/the more he hammers truth-tellers. This is clearly the case with abortion.

Wallace observed that Obama's critics say he is a "paint by the numbers liberal."

Obama demurred. Wallace responded, "But, Senator, if I may, I think one of the concerns that some people have is that you talk a good game about, let's be post-partisan, let's all come together -- just a couple of quick things, and I don't really want you to defend each one, I just want to speak to the larger issue." One of those "things" was partial-birth abortion.

Specifically referencing partial-birth abortions, Obama insisted that he "strongly believe[s] that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly." If so, why would he so vigorously criticize the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act upheld last year by the Supreme Court?

Because it had no health exception, he said. Obama goes the extra mile, telling Wallace this federal law was in service of what pro-lifers "oftentimes" try to do: "polarize the debate…"

Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority decision last year, demolished the allegation that the lack of a health exception represented an unconstitutional burden on the right to abortion. [See "Separating the Wheat from the Chaff"--www.nrlc.org/news_and_Views/April07/nv042607.html] Unfortunately, Wallace did not follow up.

It is not just his supposed opposition to "late-term abortions" out of which he wiggled. There is the entirety of his across-the-board support for abortion. It is so uniform that it compelled columnist Nat Hentoff to conclude in a piece published today that "Mr. Obama is an extremist" on abortion.

Doesn't matter how out of the mainstream the Abortion Establishment's proposal is, Obama's in favor: federal subsidies, cloning human embryos, and the most radical pro-abortion legislation you can think of--the "Freedom of Choice Act," which is Roe v. Wade on steroids--to name just a few. Likewise if the same cadre opposes something, such as parental involvement, so does the dutiful junior senator from Illinois.

But Obama has also taken a road less traveled, except by those most in the tank for the Abortion Lobby. As an Illinois state Senator he first obstructed and then voted against the Born Alive Infant Protect Act which was very similar to the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which President Bush signed into law in 2002. Even if a baby somehow survived an abortion attempt, Obama had no mercy.

And, without going through it all again, there were Obama's recent oafish, cruel, but revealing remarks in which he said that were one of his daughters to make a "mistake" and become pregnant, "I don't want them punished with a baby."

Obama will assure the public six days a week and twice on Sunday (as he told Wallace) that "my goal is to get us out of this polarizing debate where we are always trying to score cheap political points and actually get things done." We must be no less diligent in correcting Obama's trail of misrepresentations and out-and-out lies.

Part Two