Every since Watergate it has been a truism that the coverup is worse than the crime. But I wonder if now we don’t need an Obama/New York Times (ObamaTimes? The New York Tobama?) corollary: the coverup of the coverup is even worse than the coverup of the crime.
I use “crime” loosely here, although there are certainly many who regard Obama’s role in killing Illinois legislation to protect accidentally born-alive survivors of failed abortions (a position taken by only 15 left-wing members of the U.S. House of Representatives) as criminal. As most of you have seen, this issue has recently been revived, and it has now even been sanctioned as an actually existing controversy by being recognized in yesterday’s New York Times.
I’ll have more to say about the NYT article below, but first here’s a cogent summary of the issue by Rick Lowry:
In 2000, Congress took up legislation to make it clear that infants born alive after abortions are persons under the law. The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League opposed the bill as an assault on Roe, but it passed the House 380-15. Back in the Illinois state Senate in 2001, Obama spoke out against and voted “present” — effectively “no” — on a similar bill, aligning himself with the tiny pro-abortion rump of 15 congressmen.
In 2002, Congress considered the legislation again, this time adding a “neutrality clause” specifying that it didn’t affect Roe one way or another. The bill passed without any dissenting votes in the House or the Senate and was signed into law. In 2003 in Illinois, Obama still opposed a state version of the law. He long claimed that he voted against it because it didn’t have the same “neutrality clause” as the federal version. But the National Right to Life Committee has unearthed documents showing that the Illinois bill was amended to include such a clause, and Obama voted to kill it anyway.
Confronted about this on CBN, he said the pro-life group was lying. But his campaign has now admitted that he had the legislative history wrong. Obama either didn’t know his own record, or was so accustomed to shrouding it in dishonesty that it had become second nature.
The New York Sun recently examined the controversy, quoting Obama’s comments over this past weekend:
The presumptive Democratic nominee responded sharply in an interview Saturday night with the Christian Broadcast Network, saying anti-abortion groups were “lying” about his record.
“They have not been telling the truth,” Mr. Obama said. “And I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying.”
He added that it was “ridiculous” to suggest he had ever supported withholding lifesaving treatment for an infant. “It defies common sense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive,” he said in the CBN interview.
But who is being ridiculous? Quoting the Roe-neutral language copied from the second federal statute that was included in the Illinois bill that Obama, while chairman of the Senate health committee, nevertheless killed, the New York Sun added:
The dispute flared again last week when a leading opponent of legalized abortion, the National Right to Life Committee, posted records from the Illinois Legislature showing that Mr. Obama, while chairman of a Senate committee, in 2003, voted against a “Born Alive” bill that contained nearly identical language to the federal bill that passed unanimously, including the provision limiting its scope.
The group says the documents prove Mr. Obama misrepresented his record.
Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version he supported “was not the bill that was presented at the state level.”
His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate….
Thus it would appear that Obama was lying when he said his critics were lying about his record. Here is the complete text of S.B. 1082, the bill that Obama killed in 2003. It’s short, and it includes this Roe-neutral provision that speaks to the current debate:
(c) Nothing in this Section [the bill] shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this Section.
The proposed bill thus did nothing to undermine Roe or any state abortion legislation.
By now you’re wondering why I began by mentioning the New York Times. I did so because it reads like a strained and unpersuasive attempt to defend Obama’s strained and unpersuasive attempt to explain why he killed legislation to protect survivors of botched abortions, especially in its closing paragraph:
A year later, after Mr. Obama had moved on to Washington, the Illinois legislature approved a “born alive” law. But that statute, as the result of a compromise meant to avoid the standoff that led Mr. Obama to oppose the 2003 version, added language specifically stating that it should not be construed “to affect existing federal or state law regarding abortion” or “to alter generally accepted medical standards.”
That 2004 “compromise” did not appear to have added anything substantial to the 2003 version that Obama killed.
There are thus three issues here, and I think it useful not to conflate them: 1) The substance of Obama’s position on protecting abortion survivors; 2) The nature of his various explanations of his position and attacks on his critics as liars; and 3) the way this controversy has been both ignored and covered in the Obama-supporting mainstream press such as the New York Times.
Whatever one thinks about any or all of these three, it is becoming increasingly hard for Obama to portray himself (or to be portrayed by his media supporters ) convincingly as a thoughtful, moderate, unifying, post-partisan candidate.
Given that third trimester abortions are illegal (or at least I thought they were), does there really need to be legislation to protect the very small number of babies likely to survive a legal abortion? What are we talking about here? One or fewer babies across the US for the last 30 years?
I get a sneaking feeling that this whole issue was designed to trip up unwary politicians …
I, as an Obama supporter hope this story actually has legs, and here’s why:
>>>”The NARAL survey found that when pro-choice women are told that McCain believes the Roe v. Wade decision should be overturned, their support for him drops substantially. Among pro-choice independent women, who are already more inclined to back Obama, information about the two candidates’ abortion positions improves Obama’s edge from 53-35 to 66-26, for a net gain of 22 percentage points. Even pro-choice Republican women shift their support after hearing about McCain’s opposition to Roe: 76% initially say they will vote for McCain in November, but that number drops to 63%.”
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1817314,00.html
I hope the hate-radio/Fox News/Murdoch Media/right winged blogosphere keeps painting this picture of Obama being for CHOICE and McCain being for overturning Roe v. Wade.
I hope that the talking heads keep illustrating the fact that Obama will take politically unpopular positions to protect a woman’s right to choose.
This, as the Time study indicates, will bring home those pro-choice women who are currently undecided.
Keep it up, guys.
–Cobra
So Cobra tells us that Obama has taken a politically unpopular position, and that this position will help him to be elected president.
Pretty subtle …
LTEC,
A question for you…
Which rock-ribbed, Right to life Republican Presidential candidate have ever actually TRIED to get Roe v. Wade overturned when they got elected?
….
Uh-huh.
–Cobra
“(c) Nothing in this Section [the bill] shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this Section.”
Huh? A member of the species homo sapiens isn’t a human being?
What the series of events shows is how lefties expect to control public perception of virtually every issue. They normally do given their overwhelming media support. But I find it astonishing that professional political operatives (including Obama but I’m mostly referring to his advisors and public commentators) simply don’t understand the circumstances of this effect well enough to know its limitations.
The media can no longer keep anyone motivated from learning the facts. The internet killed that ability and they’ll never get it back. Nor can they control the message when the stakes pass the point where casual observers become interested, and this will include all presidential elections. I’m amazed (but thankful) they don’t realize the circumstances dictate different tactics.
If Obama is/was pro-abortion why was his history on the topic so muddled and why did he feel he had to obfuscate?
“Confronted about this on CBN, he said the pro-life group was lying. But his campaign has now admitted that he had the legislative history wrong. Obama either didn’t know his own record, or was so accustomed to shrouding it in dishonesty that it had become second nature”
So he lied or didn’t know his own voting record. That is courage in supporting politically unpopular decisions? Even the NYT couldn’t ignore it.
All of them. Hint: the president cannot “overturn” a Supreme Court decision. The only power the president has to affect one is to nominate justices who will overturn it when they get to the bench. Which Republican president, post-Nixon, has failed to nominate anti-Roe judges?
This issue looks like a beat-up to me.
It is illegal, I believe, to abort a fetus at such a stage that it might survive. How many legally aborted fetuses have survived in the last 30 years?
It seems that someone has fashioned a clever club to beat their opponents around the head with.
Perhaps the next clever piece of legislation we will see is one that makes it illegal to abort transsexuals.
PS, I don’t think I would vote for Barry O even if I could.
Which Republican president, post-Nixon, has failed to nominate anti-Roe judges?
Two off the top of my head: GHW Bush, (Souter) and Reagan (O’Connor)
Did Ford nominate any judges? Not that I recall. If not GWB is the only with the opportunity not to have appointed a Roe supporting justice.
Cobra, in all seriousness, aren’t you off-track here? The bill under consideration is one that protects a child, not a fetus. A woman’s right to choose? Choose what? Infanticide?
I really don’t see that Obama’s position on this will help him, and I think he doesn’t either. That’s why he is backing away from it.
Dom writes:
>>>”Cobra, in all seriousness, aren’t you off-track here? The bill under consideration is one that protects a child, not a fetus.”
You’re not following the Right to Life script if you honestly believe that. The Right to Life platform believes that not only a fetus is a “child”, but a zygote is a “child”–the moment the sperm cell makes contact with the ovum.
Hence, the slipperly slope argument, and the backdoor way to make abortion illegal.
–Cobra
“Hence, the slipperly slope argument, and the backdoor way to make abortion illegal.”
Well, once more. The bill says explicitly that it can not be used in a slippery slope argument. And let’s face it: Obama took a deeply, deeply ugly position.
In the array of things that will lead to my final decision, I don’t know where this one stands, but it is one that I won’t get over any time soon.
Dom,
>>>”Well, once more. The bill says explicitly that it can not be used in a slippery slope argument. And let’s face it: Obama took a deeply, deeply ugly position.”
The “argument” is whether you believe a woman has the right to choose…or not.
If you believe she does NOT have the right to choose, why does the timing of that “choice” matter?
If you believe abortion is murder, why would you equivocate for the duration of the pregnancy?
Dom writes:
>>>”Well, once more. The bill says explicitly that it can not be used in a slippery slope argument. And let’s face it: Obama took a deeply, deeply ugly position.”
You’re hanging your hat on THIS part of the bill:
>>>”(c) Nothing in this Section [the bill] shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this Section.”
As Lovernios points out in a comment above…
Who do you think you’re foolin’?
Why don’t you face the FACTS, Dom? Republicans don’t REALLY want Roe overturned. That’s the fast lane to “Whig Party-like” extinction.
They just want to keep firing up the evangelical/pro life base every few years with bogus bills like this one.
–Cobra
“…why does the timing of that “choice” matter?”
Okay. A woman gives birth and then changes her mind and chooses to abort *after* the child is born? Do you support that? If not, “why does the timing of that “choice” matter?”
I don’t know if this is a deal breaker for me, but I wish Obama’s supporters would allow him to be wrong. His position on this is indefensible.
Dom writes:
>>>”Okay. A woman gives birth and then changes her mind and chooses to abort *after* the child is born?”
Maybe you didn’t read where I said “duration of the pregnancy”.
We have seen plenty of cases where women choose to kill or otherwise dispose of their newly born infants. Most of the time, those women, if found are arrested.
–Cobra