Bait and Switch
Part One of Two

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Part Two asks, "Would You Buy a Used Teleprompter From This Man?" Be sure to post these TN&V on your social networking pages by going to www.nrlc.org/News_and_views/Mar09/nv031609.html  and clicking on the "Share" button.

It always fascinates me what finally drives people so far up the wall that all the pent-up frustrations come crashing out. Some cases are easy to understand. When a company that has received more than $170 billion in bailout money from the government gives executives $165 million in bonuses, everyone understandably goes ballistic.

But how about a more select group--"self-identified centrist or moderate evangelicals"--who sold out to then-candidate  Barack Obama for a mess of indigestible pottage? To switch metaphors, is it possible that President Obama's unrelentingly pro-abortion agenda is finally beginning to cause the scales to fall from their eyes?

Let's consider what Prof. David P. Gushee wrote in Monday's USA Today. Gushee, described as distinguished university professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and president of Evangelicals for Human Rights, tells the reader he was part of that group of  "centrist or moderate evangelicals" which "built a friendly relationship with Barack Obama and rejected the Christian right's vilification of him."

(Parenthetically, choosing not to be willfully blind to Obama's anti-life record, or his amazingly insensitive statements at Pastor Rick Warren's candidate forum, and/or his joined-at-the-hip association with Planned Parenthood does not equal "vilification." It's called discernment.)

So, what did candidate Obama use as bait as he trolled in the waters of "centrist or moderate evangelicals"? According to Gushee, it consisted of three components.

Obama reached out to them early in his candidacy (which no doubt flattered them); promised "transformational leadership" (as meaningless as it is pseudo-profound); and cast the issues net more widely (i.e., took positions that were "more consistent with broadly pro-life and pro-justice Christian values than the standard Republican alternative").

But what closed the deal, I suspect, was that "his party's platform also promised a commitment to abortion-reduction efforts, and he has echoed that language." Proving that hope is still alive, Gushee adds, "Some of us continue to dream that he will roll out a major abortion-reduction initiative."

And so, like the guy who refuses to leave the craps table, he has kept rolling and rolling the dice, hoping to hit "the big payoff"--a "serious abortion-reduction initiative that I could wholeheartedly support." Which is why, we can conclude, he pretty much kept quiet while Obama took what can only be described as "typical Democratic positions on abortion-related issues."

But instead of rolling sevens, Gushee kept coming up snake eyes. He reiterates the litany of Obama's anti-life initiatives--reversing Mexico City, a slew of militantly pro-abortion appointees (although Gushee mentions only one), declaring open season on human embryos, and launching an assault on the conscience clause that allows physicians and others to keep completely away from abortion.

Coercing consciences and conscripting taxpayer dollars for the domestic and international Planned Parenthood types seems to have unnerved Gushee. His final comment is, "President Obama, we need more than lip service on these crucial issues. Bring the transformational change your promises led us to hope for."

Talk about missing the point. Obama is attempting to bring "transformational change" on abortion. It takes the form of obliterating every pro-life gain, no matter how small, no matter how widely it is supported by the public,  and no matter how much it has accomplished exactly what Obama says he wants--to "reduce the number of abortions." And for good measure, his "transformational change" would also include ensconcing the anti-life ethos in health care "reform." 

Obama lured in these folks with a classic bait and switch. He needed them, for obvious reasons. They needed, for their own reasons, to believe in his bogus crypto-assurances.

Let's hope, for their sakes and the sake of unborn children, they wake up before it is too late.

Please send your thoughts and comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Two -- Would You Buy a Used TelePrompter From This Man?

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