Rick Santorum - The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Lil Ricky takes on Senator Obama - in his typical Lil Ricky fashion.

From his "Elephant in the Room" column over on the other side of the state.

Lil Ricky starts with HR 2175 the "Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002." Let's all recall, my friends, that Senator Obama became a US Senator in January 2005 - sometime after the debate on HR 2175.

Here's how Glenn Beck's Winston Churchill describes the law:

That bill was the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. During the partial-birth abortion debate, Congress heard testimony about babies that had survived attempted late-term abortions. Nurses testified that these preterm living, breathing babies were being thrown into medical waste bins to die or being "terminated" outside the womb. With the baby now completely separated from the mother, it was impossible to argue that the health or life of the mother was in jeopardy by giving her baby appropriate medical treatment.

The act simply prohibited the killing of a baby born alive. To address the concerns of pro-choice lawmakers, the bill included language that said nothing "shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right" of the baby. In other words, the bill wasn't intruding on Roe v. Wade.

Here's the text of HR 2175. Rick says that identical language was considered by the Illinois Senate only to be killed by Barack Obama.

At this point, I should say that it's pretty obvious that Santorum reads the Washington Times and not Mediamatters.org. Here's the editorial from the Times (published Feb 1) and it's deconstruction at Mediamatters.org (posted on Feb 5). Rick's column was published today, Feb 28.

I also want to direct your attention to the text of the Illinois bill. Here it is. You're free, of course, to peruse what Senator Santorum has declared in his column to be "identical." Of course it's not. Santorum might have been talking about some other text, of course. But the quotations from Senator Obama were about that bill. If Santorum was talking about something else, he was misleading his audience - and we couldn't imagine such a thing, right?

In any event, Rick Santorum would have saved himself a whole mess of embarrassment (as if that's possible) if he were to just have read the posting at mediamatters. Here's the Summary:

A Washington Times editorial falsely claimed that Sen. Barack Obama "argu[ed] cold-bloodedly on the Illinois Senate floor that babies who survive botched late-term abortions should not be considered 'persons' because this would be tantamount to admitting 'that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child, a 9-month old -- child that was delivered to term.' " In fact, he was not discussing "late-term abortions" in the remarks the editorial highlighted; Obama was asserting that the bill in question, which was not limited to late-term abortions, would "essentially bar abortions."

And then what Senator Obama actually said at that point. Here is some more of it:

Well, it turned out -- that during the testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman's right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the concerns that your -- you raised and that were raised by witnesses in the testimony. And there was some suggestion that we might be able to craft something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion. Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit further, and so I just want to suggest, not that I think it'll make too much difference with respect to how we vote, that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child, a nine-month-old -- child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it -- it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child. Then this would be an antiabortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional.

And then what did Ricky say? Something about a "rigid adherence" to liberalism? Here's Senator Obama again:

I think it's important to recognize though that this is an area where potentially we might have compromised and -- and arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how a -- a previable fetus or child was treated by a hospital. We decided not to do that. We're going much further than that in this bill. As a consequence, I think that we will probably end up in court once again, as we often do, on this issue. And as a consequence, I'll be voting Present.

The Rick Santorums of the world never let facts get in the way of their propaganda.