"'I think you will see a presidency that's less about hard-core ideology, and more about setting bold strategic objectives and setting out how we are going to get there,' said John D. Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama's transition. Already, that has given rise to some contradictions."
     Yesterday's New York Times.

"I can't say anything that hasn't already been said," Oprah Winfrey told the Chicago Sun-Times during last week's inaugural festivities. "It's beyond. It's sacred."

There is so much rhetoric disconnected from reality floating about it's hard to do justice to it, let alone ignore it. Let me just mention a couple of items.

During the campaign there were even some genuine pro-lifers (determined to believe that President Obama is not the ardent pro-abortionist he so clearly is) who wrote me to say that we ought to wait to see how things play out before we go into full opposition mode. For those who would not listen to reason, who resolutely ignored what Obama had said and done, I could only suggest President Reagan's immortal counsel--"Trust, but verify."

So, what did they--and we learn--three days into Obama's term?

Well, last Friday, after the last pro-lifer Marcher was safely out of town, Obama executed the Mexico City Policy with an executive order.

With that signature in place, the friendly folks who work 24/7 to abort unborn children where it is legal, and undermine protective abortion statutes where it is not, will have unfettered access to a whopping $461 million in "family planning" funds. This is the same man who told us in his augural address, "On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."

He either doesn't see or chooses to ignore that (a) he said throughout the campaign that he was bent on "reducing" the number of abortion, not guaranteeing that they would increase; and (b) that there is no more "worn-out" dogma than that killing unborn babies by the hundreds of millions somehow improves the lot of women in the developing world.

I offer the demise of the Mexico City Policy as a first example of how the execution of Obama's Abortion Agenda will be explained away. Peter Beinart, former editor of the New Republic, wrote that Obama "did so the day after instead [of the day of the March for Life], so his decision would garner less attention."

This is (according to Beinart) part of Obama's effort "to remove culture from the political debate." How? By "not [being] too publicly associated with them [cultural issues such as abortion]"--aka waiting a day to spit in pro-lifers' eyes.

If that weren't a large enough whopper, Beinert then quotes Obama as saying, "It's time that we end the politicization of this issue."

My point is a simple one. Obama wants to have it both ways: Get reams of credit for promising to seek "common ground" but not be held accountable when his actions aggravate the very problem he pretends he wants to address.

Nice work, if you can get it. Our job is to make sure he doesn't.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part One -- Why Pro-Lifers Look to NRLC for Leadership
Part Three -- Smith Says Obama Moves to Expand Abortion Around World