Much has been made of late, and deservedly so, about Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois State Senate on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. The National Right to Life Committee released a number of documents recently showing Senator Obama’s previous statements on the matter did not match the public record. Obama’s campaign is spinning hard and digging deep.
I just want to take issue with one small part of the Obama campaign’s mess that relates to his rhetoric today. In a statement to The Brody File, a blog of CBN News the Obama campaign said that certain bills he opposed were “crafted to undermine Roe v. Wade or pre-existing Illinois state law regulating reproductive healthcare and medical practice, which is why Senator Obama objected to them.” The Obama campaign also released a PDF fact sheet comparing the various bills. One category is for “Language Clearly Threatening Roe.” This is the language from the bill: “(c) A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a
human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.”
Now, I’m no former lecturer in constitutional law and race relations at the University of Chicago, but I just don’t see how that language “clearly threatens” or “undermine[s]” Roe. If Roe means that before being born, the fetus is just a blob of tissue and not a human person, how does that language undermine that definition. Under the bill’s language, before he or she is legally recognized as a human person, the child must be alive and born. I just don’t see the connection.
And I note that this is the Obama campaign TODAY – not Obama in 2001 or 2002, but Today. The spin just doesn’t match the reality.
P.S. The needle in the haystack has been found. Lo and behold, though we thought it impossible, there is in fact a person with less US Senate experience than Barack Obama – and he’s sending her to Wisconsin as a surrogate! Today and tomorrow, former United States Senator Jean Carnahan, D-MO, will be touring Wisconsin on a Women Leaders tour for the Obama campaign.
According to the Obama release, “Jean Carnahan was First Lady of Missouri from 1993-2000 and represented Missouri in the U.S. Senate from 2001-2002.” That’s right – she was a US Senator for just two years – that’s actually less than Barack Obama’s nearly four years in the Senate. And before that, she was First Lady of Missouri – and that’s not a job where you can broker peace in Northern Ireland or get shot at by snipers at airports.
So congratulations, Team Obama. Against all odds, you have found a surrogate to highlight who has less experience than your candidate.
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I think it is better to have some one with inexperience campaigning for you than use wanna-be Republicans, like Lieberman, to promote Bush policies. We will see who is right in the end.