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NRL News
“A Window into His Soul” While there are certainly clues, as this editorial is being written there is no way to know for sure who will be the Democrats’ presidential nominee. But whether it is Sen. Barack Obama (Il.) or Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY), what is sure is that the Democrats will offer the American people a candidate for whom the Abortion Establishment will go to sleep each night counting its blessings. Since he is the frontrunner, we focus on Sen. Obama in this issue. On page 14, you’ll find his track record summarized. It is something to behold, something that, in some ways, is almost unique. Here is a man who has not only earned his anti-life spurs in the United States Senate but also in the Illinois senate. In addition, Obama not only is pro-abortion, he is pro-infanticide, and regrets giving Terri Schindler Schiavo’s family one last opportunity to save their helpless daughter from a ghastly death by starvation and dehydration. He is the epitome of the anti-life Renaissance man. But Obama is nothing if not slick. While a state legislator, allies within the abortion movement allowed him to vote “present” on seven bills. Presumably Illinois PPFA was attempting to help Obama maintain his political viability. He says he is a Christian, and I, of course, take him at his word. As do prominent Christian publications and web sites which toss him softball questions and choose not to follow up on responses that beg for clarification. My own view is that in a few months we will look back to remarks Obama made to a town hall meeting in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, March 29 and see it as a turning point. Up until that day, Obama, a down-the-line pro-abortionist, had been able to keep the larger public from focusing on his out-of-the mainstream abortion views. Perhaps caught up in all the love, Obama said this: “When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include—which should include abstinence education and teaching the children—teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include—it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.” Whoa! To begin with, what kind of man uses his own single-digit-age girls as props to talk about HIV and abortion? That doltish behavior aside, doesn’t Obama realize that the “mistake” he proposes to eliminate would be his own grandchild? For all the talk about Obama’s fine-tuned “sensitivity,” I am constantly amazed by his tin ear. But just to finish the point, unplanned children as “mistakes” and “punishment”? Obama’s Illinois state Senate seat included desperately poor neighborhoods where, I would strongly suspect, a large proportion of the children are born to single mothers. If he were still representing the people of Chicago’s Southside, is it likely Obama would utter such a foolish, demeaning remark? But maybe I’m being unfair. The verbal gymnastics some supporters have gone through to “prove” that Obama was not talking about abortion may be the kind of blather that over the years has persuaded the junior senator from Illinois he is invincible. To be sure, his voting record and response to NBC’s Tim Russert about Terri are crucial (see below). But I believe NRLC Executive Director David N. O’Steen, Ph.D., captured the larger significance of Obama’s remarks in Pennsylvania. As O’Steen told the Washington Times, “This is a window into his soul.” |