NRL News
Page 2
September 2009
Volume 36
Issue 9

The Inescapable Conclusion
By Dave Andrusko

These remarks were composed off and on during a three-day frenzy in which pro-abortion President Barack Obama (his back up against the wall) began rhetorically to retool his health care “reform” message. He is going to get the debate over health care reform “back under control,” in large measure, we are told, by simplifying.

But if you believe that, I have a promise I’d like to sell you on the cheap—that a gabillion dollar deficit is going to shrink as the government tries to steer our medical decision making in a direction bureaucrats deem best, all without rationing. I have been watching electoral politics since 1960 and never have I seen such a disconnect between what we are being told is the truth and what a huge swath of the American people know really is the truth.

In that condescending fashion that so is so incredibly irritating, we are lectured that there was nothing in the various bills that might scare your socks off. That’s why we were patted on the head and assured that “reform” must be passed by August!

When ordinary citizens refused to be lulled into silence, reform proponents decided that was enough of the high road. Among others Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) began demonizing opponents as swastika-carrying “evil-mongers,” insisting that something get passed without a thorough vetting by the public. (In their minds I suspect it is their version of not negotiating with terrorists.) With public trust in Congress dropping even faster than confidence in Obama, somehow we were supposed to believe it was our patriotic duty to trust the likes of Reid and Pelosi.

Proponents of “reform” who write about the increasingly intense debate can’t get their stories straight. One day the angry opposition expressed by ordinary citizens to being treated like idiots at town hall meetings is a threat to the democratic process. The next day it’s just a wacko fringe, and that most people are seriously grappling with the mind-numbingly complex proposals.

If the point of the latter contention is that overwhelmingly most people are intent only on getting an honest answer to their concerns, rather than shouting, I couldn’t agree more. But that isn’t the conclusion proponents want you to draw.

They are insisting that if groups like NRLC weren’t telling half-truths, quarter-truths, or un-truths, “reform” would have slid right through. And that is so flat-out wrong, on so many different levels, that you have to wonder if even they believe what they are saying.

As is always the case, the arguments NRLC presents against anti-life initiatives are rooted in intense, in-depth research. Proving our point often requires nothing more than merely quoting what pro-abortion Democrats are saying in their more candid moments, or noting that these self-same Democrats refuse to remove provisions that, if not removed, would spread the abortion malignancy throughout the entire health care system. You give them a chance to make proposals abortion-neutral and they refuse. What is the inescapable conclusion?

As a few media outlets are beginning to grudgingly concede, the supposedly articulate Obama is clumsy when not tethered to his Teleprompter, and—if you are not already predisposed to agree with whatever he says—remarkably inept at the art of persuasion. I read a piece online at, of all places, CNN, which actually got the story straight.

The writer began by noting that Obama is at home in the new media, particularly the social networking outlets such as Twitter and Facebook.

“So if the Obama Administration is so Internet savvy, what’s happening with health care? As the country’s messy debate about health care reform continues, some online observers are starting to wonder if Obama has lost his grip on Internet discourse,” asks John Sutter.

But he then immediately points out, “The health care fight is the first time the U.S. has had a major policy debate where all sides are represented and haggling openly online, said Joe Trippi, author of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything. Obama’s success at mobilizing grass-roots support through online networks has inspired Republicans and interests groups to do the same, he said. That may give the impression that Obama is losing control of his online base, but it really means more people are conversing online, he said.”

Exactly! As much as the Media Elite, Obama, and the pro-death Democrat congressional leadership would have you believe otherwise, what we are seeing is both democracy in action. 

We, like lots of other groups, learned from Obama’s “mastery of online social networks” during his presidential campaign.  The difference is that because National Right to Life’s grassroots army represents boots on the ground—tons and tons of people ready at a drop of the hat to do what needs to be done—they were and are particularly well situated to respectfully demand answers from our elected officials and mobilize our fellow pro-lifers into an unparalleled level of activity. (See the other editorial that begins on page two.)

Pro-lifers have all the resources at hand. They read NRL News, or Today’s News & Views (www.nrlc.org), or the NRL Communication blog (http://nrlcomm.wordpress.com), or http://stoptheabortionagenda.com, or, best of all, the Action Center at www.nrlactioncenter.com.

Armed with all the information, they can’t be bullied, or dissuaded by misinformation, or ignored. Grassroots pro-lifers know their stuff.

Besides personally putting all this into practice, they are also linking this information on their Twitter and Facebook accounts. The capacity of social networking sites to distribute the message is almost unlimited.

Just to make the point again, NRLC is remarkably accurate; that is our hallmark. More than a few “fact check” organizations are acknowledging that what we say about health care “reform” and abortion is accurate.

When you come to the sources mentioned above, you can rely on what is said. Ready to help? Go to either http://stoptheabortionagenda.com or www.nrlactioncenter.com and just follow the steps.