Dartblog

There is some controversy over whether the McCain campaign’s characterization of Barack Obama’s abortion position—by any construction the most permissive of any prominent American politician—has been overwrought.

Specifically, supporters of Mr. Obama have in their inboxes this aft a note accusing Mr. McCain of a “despicable lie.” Mr. McCain’s lie is never mentioned; rather an independent television ad is, one that aired last week and featured a young woman who as a child survived an abortion attempt and, having done so, was permitted to live. The ad attacks Mr. Obama’s wilderness position on abortion, which includes the opinion that babies which have been born can still be “aborted.” No other congressional Democrat or Republican agrees with that view, and Mr. Obama is miffed that his opponent has decided to bring it up. But that view belongs to Mr. Obama despite his fresh chagrin. To wit, this state senate transcript of Mr. Obama from 2001:

[I]f we’re placing a burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as — as is necessary to try to keep that child alive, then we’re probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality.

Which statement, after the gut recoil, merely causes one to wonder this: “Crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality”? Has Barack Obama ever been within five miles of the University of Chicago School of Law?

No one has ever had a good look at Mr. Obama’s c.v. although his own campaign’s defenses give us to understand that “Ran for President” is at the top. Surely lawyer and professor of law are not far below. But in those latter jobs, one’s performance is measurable—one’s competence absolutely knowable. Wouldn’t a more reasonable man have made his argument for aborting everything in sight without so laughably dragging the constitution into it? If he were a conservative we could have some yucks over the fact that Genius David Axelrod is “Obama’s brain.” As it is that suggestion seems a little off-point. But only because we are made to think it so.