Finally: Personal Vindication, But an Unsolvable Problem Looms for the Democratic Party

Last winter, following my own original research on Barack Obama’s views on abortion, which required days of laborious searches of every possible resource as well as serious fact-checking, I stumbled, by chance, on the fact that Obama had voted present, and then nay, on Illinois state senate bills related to the extremely rare instances in which an infant is born alive following an abortion. (I’m pro-choice, and even attended a friend’s NARAL meetings during my own pregnancy 20+ years ago, but that issue is a no-brainer: One makes every effort possible to save the infant’s life. If I had a late-term abortion (personally unlikely unless there were the most exceptional circumstances), the live birth of my infant is an outcome with which I would be prepared to live.)

After I had lined up all of my facts, I published the findings at some “left” blogs, and here. The attacks were immediate, and vicious. ONE key point I had made in my article was that Sen. Hillary Clinton and then-senator John Edwards both voted for the “live birth” law — in fact the ENTIRE U.S. Senate voted unanimously for the “live birth” measure. Obama’s devotees explained his state senate votes (actually, they ranted) by informing me that it was what Planned Parenthood had TOLD him to do. (Let me get this right: A lobbying group instructed him? And he just blindly went along? Without using an iota of common sense about the ramifications? He — the man with enormous political ambitions — didn’t THINK OUT the future fall-out? He didn’t know, in an instant, that this would come back to haunt him? NONE OF THIS MADE ANY SENSE to me.)

Why did I write that story last winter? Why did I dare to publish that story in a hostile environment? I wanted to WARN fellow Democrats that this was an issue that the GOP could successfully use against Obama, and not only with conservatives but also with ANY liberal with a heart, and most especially any parent, no matter if the parent is a Republican or Democrat. Furthermore, the second Illinois state senate bill — the one that state senator Obama voted NAY on — was IDENTICAL to that passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate.

Today, I wake up and find out that the MSM has begun to discover exactly what I knew in 2007. There are numerous media reports (check Memeorandum.com). The article I choose to feature is that by David Freddoso, the author of the new book on Obama — which happens (and isn’t this interesting) to be the ONLY book that the Obama camp does not attack. Why is the Obama campaign not attacking that book? Might it be because a true journalist has written a truthful book? Could the REAL AGENDA of the Obama camp behind its all-out attack on blowhard Jerome Corsi’s book be because they wish to divert attention from David Freddoso’s far better book?

In today’s “Life Lies: Barack Obama and Born-Alive.,” Mr. Fredosso — who earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, one of the toughest journalism schools to get into in the nation — writes:

In 2001, Senator Barack Obama was the only member of the Illinois senate to speak against a bill that would have recognized premature abortion survivors as “persons.” The bill was in response to a Chicago-area hospital that was leaving such babies to die. Obama voted “present” on the bill after denouncing it. It passed the state Senate but died in a state house committee.

In 2003, a similar bill came before Obama’s health committee. He voted against it. But this time, the legislation was slightly different. This latter version was identical to the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which by then had already passed the U.S. Senate unanimously (with a hearty endorsement even from abortion advocate Sen. Barbara Boxer) and had been signed into law by President Bush. …

Fredosso then addresses Sen. Obama’s immediate predicament:

Sen. Obama is currently misleading people about what he voted against, specifically claiming that the bill he voted against in his committee lacked “neutrality” language on Roe v. Wade. The bill did contain this language. He even participated in the unanimous vote to put it in.

Obama’s work against the bill to protect premature babies represents one of two times in his political career, along with his speech against the Iraq war, that he really stuck out his neck for something that might hurt him politically. Unlike his Iraq speech, Obama is deeply embarrassed about this one — so embarrassed that he is offering a demonstrable falsehood in explanation for his actions. Fortunately, the documents showing the truth are now available.

At the end of last week, Obama gave an interview to CBN’s David Brody in which he repeated the false claim that the born-alive bills he worked, spoke, and voted against on this topic between 2001 and 2003 would have negatively affected Roe v. Wade. This has always been untrue, but, until last week, it appeared to be a debatable point that depended on one’s interpretation of the bill language. Every single version of the bill was neutral on Roe. Each one affected only babies already born, not ones in the womb.

“Every single version of the bill was neutral on Roe.” That is NOT what Obama’s devoted followers have been telling you, is it?

What is worse is that Obama made this disastrous decision as late as 2003:

But in 2003, in the health committee which he chaired, Obama voted against a version of the bill that contained the specific “neutrality” language — redundant language affirming that the bill only applied to infants already born and granted no rights to the unborn. You can visit the Illinois legislature’s website here to see the language of the “Senate Amendment 1,” which was added in a unanimous 10-0 vote in the committee before Obama helped kill it. This is the so-called “neutrality clause” on Roe that everyone is talking about: …

Mr. Freddoso then provides the actual language of the state senate bill, as well as the TRUE history of eyewitnesses to the Illinois state senate deliberations.

Here is a link to the single-page version of Mr. Freddoso’s entire article today.

This saga reveals far too many disturbing problems about Mr. Obama’s character and decision-making abilities:

(1) He took orders, supposedly, from a lobbying group without thinking through the ramifications;

(2) He let lobbying money determine his vote on a matter that is highly sensitive and disturbing to ALL human beings, not just to right-to-life zealots;

(3) He didn’t consider how people would instantly react to the entire idea — that no one, in the extremely rare instances in which an infant might happen to be born alive following an abortion, would ever set an infant down on a table and let it die without doing everything possible to keep it alive. Only the cruelest person would ever do such a thing. It has NOTHING to do with politics. It has EVERYTHING to do with having a heart.

(4) And now he is repeatedly lying about those incredibly ill-advised and illogical decisions during his tenure as a part-time state senator.

It is bad enough that he didn’t think through the implications of his votes in the 1990s and as late as 2003.

It is worse that he has taken out a shovel, and is digging himself in deeper.

All of this, both his past bad decisions and his current ill-advised decision to prevaricate, will profoundly affect voters — no matter their liberal or conservative preferences.

Mr. Freddoso concludes his article with this additional proof, and a sad repetition of Mr. Obama’s continuing lies:

[A]fter the above amendment was added to change the original bill, making it identical to the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, Obama and five other Democrats voted to kill it. They killed the same bill that the U.S. Senate had passed unanimously. Here is the interview in which Sen. Obama offers his false explanation once again, which is contradicted not only by eyewitnesses but also by the records of his own committee:

…I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying. I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported — which was to say — that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born – even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade.

The senator is right. Someone is lying.

And now it is left to the Democratic party to clean up the mess it has created for itself.

Good luck, DNC. You’re going to need it.

You did not properly vet this man.

You ignored articles such as mine and Larry Johnson’s.

We were not consumed with hatred, as you chose to believe.

We were genuinely worried that you were missing the opportunity to elect a truly qualified candidate whose life was already an open book, and who wouldn’t be subjected to the fact-checking in the HEAT of a post-primary presidential campaign.

Have you forgotten that the entire purpose of a long primary contest is to VET THE CANDIDATES?

Have you forgotten that the importance of a LONG primary contest is to give people the time needed to stop “falling in love” with a candidate — to get past the honeymoon phase — and to really take a HARD look at the candidate?

Here’s a news flash: Not only is the honeymoon over, but you are walking down the aisle and into a BAD MARRIAGE.

But note that I just wrote that you are still “walking down the aisle.”

There is time to turn around and walk out.

You have precisely one week left to come to your senses.

Will you react like too many brides and grooms? Will you worry about all the guests you’ve already invited? Will you fret about the caterers and wedding planners you’ve already paid? Will you be too afraid to confront your soon-to-be spouse?

Or will you save yourself, at the last instant, from the worst mistake of your lives?