After much criticism, we now have this from the Obama campaign.
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...
Let's briefly review how we arrived at this point. Obama has stated numerous times that he did not vote for the Illinois legislation because it did not have the neutrality clause that the federal legislation contained. He repeated this as recently as this past Saturday and called his critics liars because they knew the truth yet kept repeating their claim. Now, his campaign admits that the state law did contain the clause that Obama said it did not. But of course, following the lie of their dear leader, they attempt another excuse.
...and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law.
This excuse of Obama's is on the record, at least for the 2001 version of the legislation. Yet instead, he has offered the lack of a neutrality clause as his reason, before he had to drop it, once it was shown to be a lie.
But let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he just forgot about this other justification. Although it is instructive that he would resort to a lie, when an apparent truth is available, let's put that aside for now and just take the campaign statement at face value. Problem is, that doesn't help when Obama's entire history on this matter is considered.
In 2001, as a state senator, Obama spoke against similar legislation in Illinois. Links to Obama's votes on the state legislation here.
That would seem quite brave, but keep in mind that he represented a very liberal part of Chicago. In addition to that fact, when it came time to vote, Obama didn't vote against the bill he just severely criticized, he merely voted present. Apparently, Barack Obama decided to bust out his M.C. Hammer impersonation when push came to shove.
Fast forward to 2003. Obama is now on a committee dealing with this legislation. The record shows that the committee he presided over added the neutrality clause, that until now, he said was absent from the bill and was the reason he voted against it.
So what of this other excuse, that the legislation did not explicitly say it would not affect current state abortion laws? A reasonable reading of the bill indicates that this interpretation is merely hogwash.
Told of the campaign's explanation, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, Douglas Johnson, was dubious. "These are newly manufactured and highly implausible excuses," he said. "There is no way that the bill would have had any effect on any method of abortion." Mr. Johnson said the version Mr. Obama voted down clearly applied only to fetuses that emerged from the womb alive. (source, thanks to HotAir)
But even if we give Obama every benefit of the doubt, all it shows is that when he had the power to fix the bill, he chose not to. After all, he presided over the very committee that added the neutrality clause, that was supposedly the one thing keeping him from supporting the bill.
The Obama campaign has now admitted that the facts contradict what Barack Obama has been claiming. Their new attempt at excusing Obama's vote only shows that when he had the ability to make the bill acceptable to himself, he chose to do nothing and by that choice, allowed infanticide to continue.
One does not have to be pro-life to be offended at this. Even pro-choice politicians overwhelmingly voted for the Born Alive act in the U.S. Congress. Even NARAL supported the final legislation, that had the neutrality clause Obama falsely claimed did not exist in the state legislation.
At the Saddleback Civil Forum Barack Obama claimed this is what it meant for him to live out Christianity on a daily basis.
....but what it also means, I think, is a sense of obligation to embrace not just words but through deeds the expectations that God has for us. And that means thinking about the least of these. It means acting -- well, acting justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with our God... (Video and transcripts here)
Clearly, Obama was referring to the following words of Jesus:
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was hungry, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Mat 25:34-40)
It says little of a man that would reference that passage, while he knows what his own record is regarding infanticide, and while he continues to lie about it. Barack Obama can not be trusted to protect babies against infanticide or to tell the truth about his position on the matter. The record shows this, his campaign unwittingly admits to it while trying to spin Obama out from under his own lies and he damns himself while pandering to evangelicals. Perhaps Barack Obama should consider what else scripture has to say.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (Mat 18:6)
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Related posts:
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Excessive word count...
Moral equivalency did not stop the Soviet Union
Words do matter
Finally! Democrats are being listened to regarding Iraq
He means his ears are bigger - right?
A tale of a speech and a mustache
Sincerity vs political calculation
Barack Obama finds he has a third foot
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Filed under: Politics -- News -- Culture -- Abortion
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