Despicable Lies
Well, I see that Mr. Obama has characterized the truth that he supports allowing live-birth abortion victims to be neglected to death as “despicable lies”. He’s used this tactic before, and it’s wearing a little thin. The fact remains that he led the fight in Illinois against protecting the most vulnerable of our live citizens, a position that was not taken by a single member of the United States Senate when an identical bill was passed unanimously and which takes him beyond even NARAL, making his the most extreme anti-life position ever taken by a major candidate for any office in this country.
That he would continue to lie about his own record is understandable, because it is a position that is as repugnant and repulsive as almost any imaginable.
Everybody please read Mona Charen’s Deniers for Obama.
Here’s the money quote:
Barack Obama is a charming and intelligent man. But there is no other way to interpret his position on BAIPA than this: A woman who chooses an abortion is entitled to a dead child no matter what. That is an abortion extremist.
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Far be it for me to presume to advise Mr. Obama on how to run his campaign, but running on death issues is a loser. I’m not just speaking of the above wacky position, but rather the conscious and concerted effort by Obama to inject abortion as a campaign issue. This tactic has been tried time and time again and it always fails. Pro-abortion candidates are encouraged by polls which show that a majority of voters support a right to abortion under some circumstances. The various caveats to that I will ignore for the moment and just accept the general premise.
What the polls don’t show is that when it comes to the voting booth, the general philosophic acceptance of abortion does not translate into votes for an assertive pro-abortion candidate. The reasons are many. Part of it is that the pro-life vote is far more focused on the issue, far more likely to treat it as a make or break decider.
And part of it is simply that most voters feel extremely uncomfortable with candidates promoting death, whether they agree with the “right” or not. This reality is not limited to abortion or party. Republicans have made he same mistake over and over themselves by assuming that general public support for the death penalty will translate into votes for a pro-death penalty candidate. I remember several losing campagns in New York along these lines. Mario Cuomo stated right out that he would not enforce a death penalty in New York even if one passed. People disagreed with that, but respected him for it, because it was grounded in morality. And there was just something creepy about running for office proclaiming you will put more people to death than the other guy. That is something I’ve never been fond of George W. Bush for, and I recall Bill Clinton establishing his “moderate” credentials by running back to Arkansas during his first campaign to ensure a criminal would be put to death before the election.
And I truly can’t think of a single pro-life legislator who was thrown out of office on that issue. Despite all the talk of suburban Republican women eagerly protecting their right to choose, it just never happens that way. Sure, the most pro-life guy in the Senate, Rick Santorum, got tossed a couple of years ago, but only after the Democrats cynically recruited the son of the nation’s most revered pro-life Democrat (an admittedly small field, but Bob Casey Senior was a good guy) to run against him.
So keep bringing it up, Obama. Keep reminding us.
I’m Bob Going and I approved these despicable lies.
