Obama camp: He only voted against that born-alive abortion bill because it might actually have an effect

HotAir.com

David Freddoso says he can’t see how Obama can spin his way out of this now that his own team’s admitted he lied about it to David Brody. I can think of a way: Drag the issue so deep into the weeds of Illinois’s state legislative history that no one but the most dogged Obama critic will pursue the matter once his eyes have glazed over from trying to keep track of the various pemutations of the bill. To recap, Obama initially said he voted against the 2003 bill protecting born-alive aborted fetuses only because it would have threatened abortion rights due to its lack of a “neutrality” clause vis-a-vis Roe v. Wade. Minor problem: The bill did include that clause and State Sen. Obama was one of the committee members who made sure that it did — before he voted against it anyway. Meanwhile, the bill he voted against was identical to a bill that passed 98-0 in Congress which he claims he would have voted for if he had been a U.S. Senator at the time. How to reconcile the two positions? Simple: Since there are no federal abortion laws, the federal bill was essentially a symbolic gesture, whereas there are of course state abortion laws in Illinois that could have been affected by the state bill. Which is to say, he was prepared to take a stand on the issue if he knew that his stand would have … no practical consequences whatsoever.