The last thing I would ever do is find fault with someone for passionately supporting their candidate. I've felt that way forever, as you, no doubt, have as well. The difference this election cycle is that so many people are so enamored of the image of Obama, so invested in his taking residence in the White House, that mere facts make no difference.

Let me offer a couple of absolutely fascinating illustrations of a genuinely scary prospect.

The appeal of radio shock jock Howard Stern (now on Sirius Satellite Radio) escapes me. But occasionally, he stumbles onto to an important discovery.

Stern recently sent one of his minions into a part of New York City where you'd expect the residents to overwhelmingly support Sen. Obama. But in talking to the "man (and woman) on the street" who said they favored Obama, he attributed to Obama views on abortion (and the war in Iraq) that actually are McCain's. In other words, he told them that Obama was pro-life.

How did this set with them?

The respondents were fine with that, even though Obama is pro-abortion to the hilt. And they also had no problem with Obama's "selection" of Sarah Palin as his running mate, even though she is, of course, Sen. McCain's VP! (I wonder what they would have said had the interviewer told them Obama favored a return to slavery.)

I'm no social psychologist, but it was amazing how easily, how readily Obama's supporters assimilated information that is totally at odds with who he is and what he proposes.

I thought of that as I read a brilliant critique of self-identified "pro-life Catholics" (and Evangelicals) that are ardently supporting Obama. Professor Robert George describes their arguments as "spectacularly weak" and "nearly unfathomable." I think this is no exaggeration. Prof. George's essay carefully demolishes the intellectual edifice erected by Obama's "pro-life" supporters.

For the purposes of illustration, Prof. George hypothesizes that there is a distinction between being "pro-choice" and "pro-abortion." What Obama's "pro-life" supporters seem incapable of processing is that the Abortion Establishment is counting on Obama to plant their flag in new territories.

Obama's "pro-life" supporters won't even settle for a portrait of their hero as a passive, go along to get along candidate who doesn't really care one way or the other about abortion. In an intellectual sleight of hand of staggering proportions, they have turned his enthusiastic embrace of every possible way to increase the number of dead babies on its head.

In what seems to be a kind of self-hypnosis, they have persuaded themselves that Obama really is committed to "reducing the number of abortions." In this heightened state of suggestibility, they look at various highly dubious programmatic rationales and convince themselves that they "must" work, even if there is no evidence they will work.

But that's only the lesser half of it.

It's one thing to make false extrapolations. It is quite another to refuse to allow their conscious mind to take into account the unavoidable impact of what would happen if a President Obama is able to clear the decks of all pro-life policies.

Referring to the self-identified "pro-life" Obama supporters, Prof. George writes,

"They say that his [Obama's] economic and social policies would so diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion--oops! 'pro-choice'--candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive research.

They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of the unborn. This is delusional."

We've discussed the "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) here many times.

Obama has promised Planned Parenthood that his first act as president would be to sign FOCA.

Pro-lifers, such as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, grimly warn that FOCA would guarantee "a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons.'" Pro-abortionists, such as the National Organization for Women, gleefully proclaim that FOCA would "sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies."

But we don't have to rely on either side's word alone. Prof. George quotes from the careful work of scholar Tom McClusky.

Mr. McClusky examined Planned Parenthood's own statistics and found "that in each of the seven states that have FOCA-type legislation on the books, 'abortion rates have increased while the national rate has decreased.'" Prof. George tells us that McClusky looked at Maryland, which in 1991 enacted a bill similar to the one favored by Obama, and found that while the national abortion rate decreased by 9 percent "abortion rates have increased by 8 percent" in Maryland.

While these Obama supporters probably are immune to the truth, for most people the truth still matters. But that requires that each and every one of us does our part to share the truth with family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

We have a presidential comparison sheet that you can download at http://nrlc.org/Election2008/comparison0909084c.pdf. You can also order multiple copies online at only a nickel each at http://www.nrlchapters.org/comparisonbuy.htm and have them sent out the same day.

Please do your part, starting today.

Send your thoughts to me at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

Part Two -- "Hope and Trust in Life" is Theme of Respect Life Month