By Dave Andrusko

Part Two is emotionally tough sledding, but I would encourage you to read it. Part Three is an item from last week that some people did not receive because of technical problems. It's about a fabulous new DVD. Please send your thoughts on all or all parts to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you'd like, follow me on http://twitter.com/daveha.

You almost have to live in the Washington DC area to fully appreciate how excited/nervous/filled with dread/filled with anticipation Congress (and the media) is as we approach yet another "deadline" for passage of health care restructuring. The latest was announced last week by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: March 18 so President Obama can head off for a trip to Indonesia and Australia with a clear head and an unburdened heart.

Keep that in mind as you read the following headlines, chosen arbitrarily from any number that could have been selected.

"How Obama can shift the health-care debate," by David Ignatius in today's Washington Post online.

"The Up-or-Down Vote on Obama's Presidency," Frank Rich, op-ed in today's New York Times.

"Non-Stop News: President Barack Obama and the press," from a story written by Ken Auletta that appeared in the January 10 New Yorker.

"How Pelosi will game the Stupak 12," written by Marc A. Thiessen, which appeared in the Post Online last Friday.

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama

Let me quickly talk about each and try to figure out what they tell us about a gargantuan-size health care restructuring that is chock-full of presents for the Abortion Industry and snares for pro-lifers.

Ignatius recycles a familiar lament, one that sometimes comes with the coda that Obama needs to be less professorial and more demagogic, sometimes not. But in one sentence the complaint/advice to Obama is to frame the argument for his health care "reform" in "moral" terms.

If he's just "indignant" enough, we are to believe, opposition will melt away like snow in spring (only faster). It is a silly argument that simultaneously insults opponents and trivializes their concerns.

The obvious conclusion is that those who oppose Obama are trafficking in immoral arguments or simply fronting for immoral "special interests." But it's hard to see how insulting those who disagree with him is likely to move Obama's argument along.

For example, is our opposition to the Senate health bill (in the words of NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson) "a 2,407-page labyrinth strewn with the legislative equivalents of improvised explosive devices -- disguised provisions that will result in federal pro-abortion mandates and federal subsidies for abortion," somehow lacking in moral sincerity or force? Please.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich

As for Mr. Rich, the new last refuge for scoundrels is to make support for Obamacare a test of whether you care whether his Administration rises or falls. But what about those Democrats who are rapidly coming to the conclusion that Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi don't care a twit about whether a vote for Obamacare will sink them next November?

Rich has assurances: "This country's congenitally short attention span." He writes, "Once the health care fight is over and out of sight, it will be out of mind to most Americans."

Any Democrat foolish enough to believe that has no one to blame but him or herself when they are unceremoniously booted out of office in eight months.

Auletta's long, long New Yorker article has lots of interconnected parts, so let me focus on just one. Again, like many, Auletta is convinced Obama is doing himself grave damage by being on the Tube/radio/Internet seemingly non-stop.

But Obama's near-omnipresence is a convenient scapegoat. If Obama's argument was sounder and more compelling, he and the Democratic congressional leadership would not have to ram the Senate's bill through and it wouldn't make any difference if he gave 50 speeches a day. And, psst, when he is operating on the ground, forced to talk specifics, Obama is simply not nearly as formidable as when his rhetoric is soaring overhead in content-free gibberish about "hope."

Finally, Thiessen elaborates on something NRLC has warned about for weeks: if the House votes in favor of the Senate measure, there wouldn't be any second chances, it wouldn't be revisited and "improved" through "reconciliation."

This Obama/Pelosi/Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ploy is like the pickpocket who taps you on the shoulder while he lifts the wallet out of your pocket. You pay attention to something that doesn't matter--reconciliation--while missing the real action--how pro-abortionists will carry the day if the House is foolish enough to vote in favor of the Senate bill.

House members cannot say they weren't warned, and not just by writers such as Thiessen. NRLC has outlined in detail the various gimmicks that Obama and Pelosi and Reid are employing. (Lesser known figures are also offering spurious assurances. Last week pro-abortion Congresswoman Louise Slaughter suggested that the House should pass the Senate bill after receiving a "blood oath" from Democratic senators that they would later pass a specific list of changes to the bill.")

So our position on this was made abundantly clear. "A House member who votes for the Senate bill would forfeit a plausible claim to pro-life credentials," Johnson wrote last week. "No House member who votes for the Senate bill will be regarded, in the future, as having a record against federal funding of abortion."

Part Two
Part Three