I'd say, "Look, I know when it begins for me." It's a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church.

But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths - Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and others - who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They're intensely as religious as I am religious. They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life - I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception.

But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.

And I know you get the push back, "Well, what about fascism?" Everybody, you know, you going to say fascism's all right? Fascism isn't a matter of faith. No decent religious person thinks fascism is a good idea.

When will people stop acting like the question, "When does the life of a human being begin?" is a question that different people can have different correct answers to?

Biden would "impose his judgement" on religious people in our pluralistic society on any number of given issues yet on the issue of when life begins, his judgement is suddenly not worthy of being imposed.

I wish Brokaw's follow-up question had been phrased like this, "So your judgment is that the unborn are living human beings but you still think it should be legal to kill these living human beings?"

Lots of juicy tidbits in this New York Times article today - after the eye-rolling use of the word "bold" in the 1st paragraph. Only the NYT would consider it "bold" to front 2 liberal commentators as objective news reporters:

MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel's coverage of the election....

That experiment appears to be over.

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that... David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night...

The change... is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel's perceived shift to the political left....

Executives... had high hopes for MSNBC's coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers... and quite possibly alienating viewers....

MSNBC... remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news networks....

When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted "NBC"....

On the final night of the Republican convention, after MSNBC televised the party's video "tribute to the victims of 9/11" Olbermann abruptly took off his journalistic hat...

After saying that the video had exploited the memories of the dead, he directly apologized to viewers who were offended. Then, sounding like a network executive, he said it was "probably not appropriate to be shown."...

A like-minded talk show will now follow [Olbermann's] "Countdown" at 9 p.m.: "The Rachel Maddow Show," hosted by the liberal [Air America] radio host, begins Monday.

Mr. Griffin, MSNBC's president, denies that it has an ideology. "I think ideology means we think one way, and we don't," he said. Rather than label MSNBC's prime time as left-leaning, he says it has passion and point of view....

Some tensions have spilled out on-screen. On the first night in Denver, as the fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough talked about the resurgence of the McCain campaign, Mr. Olbermann dismissed it by saying: "Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?"

The following night, Mr. Olbermann and his co-anchor for convention coverage, Mr. Matthews, had their own squabble after Mr. Olbermann observed that Mr. Matthews had talked too long....

On a recent Friday afternoon, a graphic labeled "Breaking News" asked: "How many houses does Palin add to the Republican ticket?" Mr. Griffin called the graphic "an embarrassment."

[HT: proofreader Laura Loo; top photo courtesy of New York magazine]

Polls out today...

USA Today:" McCain leads... Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters, the Republican's biggest advantage since January and a turnaround from the USA Today poll poll taken just before the convention opened in St. Paul. Then, he lagged by 7%...."

Gallup: "... McCain has overtaken... Obama... and has his highest level of support... since early May. McCain leads Obama 48% to 45% among registered voters.... Obama peaked at a 5-point convention bounce... last Tuesday. He was ahead 49% to 43% ... before the Republican convention. He then soared to 50% for the first time of the election... while McCain fell to 42%."...

Zogby: "The McCain/Palin ticket wins 49.7% support, compared to 45.9% backing for the Obama/Biden ticket...."

Rasmussen: "... [W]hen "leaners" are included, Obama and McCain are now tied at 48%. That means that, by Rasmussen's measure, Obama's 6-point bounce has been erased."

CBS News: "[P]olling had shown the same outcome [as Rasmussen] midway through the GOP convention."

Nielsen: "[T]he Republican convention earned more television viewers than the Democratic convention. Republicans earned an average audience of 34.5 million, while Democrats earned an average viewership of 30.2 million."

[Photo of McCain/Palin in Colorado Springs yesterday courtesy of the Associated Press]

UPDATE, 11:50a: The New York Times has a story today on Biden's attempted parse on the abortion issue [HT: moderator Chris]:

... Biden's views... came at a time when his party is confronted with a new face: Gov. Sarah Palin... whose anti-abortion stance and decision to give birth just 5 months ago to a baby with Down syndrome have revved up the conservative base of her party.

In the interview Sunday, Mr. Biden tried to walk the line between the staunch abortion-rights advocates in his party and his own religious beliefs.

IMO, that line is becoming increasingly difficult to traverse.
_______________

For a topic no one cares about according to MSM, pollsters, and liberals, the abortion issue sure is getting a lot of coverage. I love it. Think about who doesn't want to talk about such things as when life begins: only pro-aborts.

Yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw asked puffy-eyed Joe Biden (not enough sleep or too much to drink - or both?) how he might instruct self-professed ignorant Barack Obama on when life begins....

Biden, a pro-abortion Catholic, responded:

I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.

Biden, like Obama, attempted to make this a religious question.

But it is much more than that. It is a scientific, medical, and constitutional question.

When do science and medicine say human life begins? At conception. This isn't some vague concept.

What about the Constitution? 35 years ago US Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the Roe v. Wade decision:

The appellee ... argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the 14th Amendment ... If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.

35 years ago one could not watch human fertilization with a microscope or view early life with 4D ultrasound. Were personhood to be an issue before the US Supreme Court today, as Blackmun stated, the other side's argument would "collapse."

I love that Brokaw quoted NY's Cardinal Egan, too, basically calling Biden, Pelosi, and Obama unfit for office.

On ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos yesterday, Barack Obama tried to backpeddle on his now infamous "above my pay grade" response to Rick Warren's question, "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?"...

Actually, Obama tried to redirect the conversation to "When does a baby get a soul?" which clearly was NOT what Warren asked. For American voters, Warren was framing a constitutional question.

Nevertheless, Obama still feigned ignorance, which begged the next question Stephanopoulos didn't ask: Why so avidly support abortion if you're not sure it may kill innocent human souls?

Obama admitted, "abortion is a moral issue," which begged more questions from Stephanopoulos, first simply, "Why?" Then: "If it is a moral issue, do you think it is right or wrong?"

We know Obama thinks abortion is a right, but does he think that right is right? He must think it's wrong because he touts the need to reduce them (although every action he has ever taken or says he plans to takes increases them).

I've uploaded this video twice and don't know why the video won't line up with the audio, sorry...

Following is a very strange interview CBS's Katie Couric conducted with Cindy McCain on September 3.

McCain made all these contradictory points in the interview...

She is pro-life. But she opposes overturning Roe v. Wade, which she first indicated was her husband's position.

She then clarified they both thought abortion should be a state's issue (which can only happen with the overturn of Roe v. Wade).

She also stated that like her husband she supports abortion for rape/incest.

After the interview Couric added the campaign clarified "that like Laura Bush, CIndy McCain does not favor overturning Roe v. Wade."

We know Laura Bush is pro-abortion.

So I am left thinking Cindy has an abysmal lack of understanding of Roe v. Wade and is a pro-abort trying to mask it.

Also of note was Couric's anti-life bias. She started out by saying, "Even Republicans seem surprised that Senator McCain picked a running mate who opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and incest...."

When will Couric ask Michelle Obama, "Even Democrats seem surprised that the party picked Senator Obama for president, who supports partial birth abortion, opposes parental notification of minors before they abort, and who supports allowing little abortion survivors to die."