Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Discriminations

Legal Commentary

: Discriminations

Is The Coverup Of A Coverup Worse Than The Coverup Of A Crime?

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.

Full post as published by Discriminations on August 20, 2008 (boomark / email).