BlogWonks

If you’re having trouble understanding the controversy over Barack Obama and the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, or you haven’t heard about it before, Rich Lowry has a good synopsis of what it’s all about. Essentially, Barack Obama has been caught lying about his very radical abortion voting record, and has finally had to admit it.

It’s not just partial-birth abortion where Obama is outside the mainstream, but on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act — the occasion for his televised accusation of lying.

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.

Obama is just so used to lying that he doesn’t even know when he’s doing it anymore.