On September 10 Washington Post “fact checker” Josh Hicks (pictured right) picked apart the Susan B. Anthony List ad featuring abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, which called out Barack Obama for voting against the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act four times when state senator. The ad:
When he was in the Illinois state Senate, Barack Obama voted to deny basic constitutional protections for babies born alive from an abortion – not once, but four times. I know it’s by the grace of God that I’m alive today, if only to ask America this question: Is this the kind of leadership that will lead us forward – that would discard the weakest among us?
Bizarrely, the only point Hicks could find to quibble with was the word “discard.” Was Ohden claiming she was “discarded”? Hicks pressed, apparently expecting late-term abortionists to cuddle babies they just aborted.
When Ohden couldn’t produce medical charts proving she was actually “discarded,” whatever Hicks imagined that meant, Hicks pronounced that Ohden was embellishing and gave her three “Pinochios” (out of four).
Meanwhile Hicks couldn’t “fathom” that Barack Obama would actually vote against protecting aborted alive infants.
Hicks proceeded to do a little of his own embellishing, rationalizing that when Obama used the term “previable fetus” (page 86 of the senate transcript) while arguing against the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act during floor debate, he must have meant “a fetus still inside the womb,” according to Hicks.
This was to say Obama didn’t know the bill he opposed was about born-alive infants – despite the name of the bill.
And this was to ignore Obama’s description a couple sentences prior (page 85) that the subject he had in mind was indeed a born baby, a “fetus or child, as – as some might describe it… still temporarily alive outside the womb.”
Obama reiterated a year later on the Illinois senate floor he was discussing (page 32) a “nonviable fetus… fetus, or child – however way you want to describe it… now outside the mother’s womb… in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead….”
Hicks agreed with FactCheck.org that Barack Obama lied when he claimed in 2008 he would have voted for legislation as Illinois state senator to protect born-alive infants had it been identical to legislation that passed unanimously in the United States Senate. In fact, Obama voted for a clause aligning the state verbiage with the federal before voting against it.
Hicks wrote he would have given Obama four “Pinocchios” for that lie, except the lie was “several years old now.” Good to know the WashPo “fact” checker has a statute of limitations on lying.
Mark Hemingway at The Weekly Standard has a good piece on this journalistic absurdity (good title: “WaPo Fact Checker: We Could Give Obama Four Pinocchios on His Abortion Record, But Won’t), as does Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO.
But what has snagged my fancy are the comments. The count is currently at 163, and many if not most are incredulous, with lots of wit to boot. A sampling:
By scottcpan:
So you dole out Pinocchios on stylistic objections, not factual ones, and as long as a what you admit was a lie was a while ago, even though it’s germane to the current campaign, you won’t dole out Pinocchios.
Must be nice in this economy to be able to keep a job you stink at.
edarnold:
Memo to the Post’s Management:
Time to fire your ‘Fact Checker’.
The question to be addressed by this article is whether Obama, as an Illinois State Senator, voted to deny a right to life to survivors of late term abortions, The answer, according to the evidence presented in the article, is that he clearly did so vote. The conclusion of the article should be clearly stated that in denying that he voted in this way Mr. Obama is lying.
Instead, your ‘Fact Checker’ twists, turns, weasels and misrepresents the events, and the individuals who are calling Mr. Obama to account for his lie. The ‘Fact Checker’s’ total lack of objectivity plainly shows him to be a member of the campaign to re-elect Mr. Obama, no matter what the cost to his own, and the newspaper’s, credibility.
Did Obama vote to deny rights to infant abortion survivors? Yes, and then lied about doing so.
pembroke601:
In 2008 these liberal fact checkers were absurd, today they’re absolutely insane with b s.
fury60:
Obama voted to murder babies born alive and the fact checker justifies it.
A liberal media fact-checker walks into a bar with a duck on his head.
Bartender asks, “Can I help you?”
Duck says, “Yeah, get this liar off my a**.”
Jackson isn’t the first recording artist to explore the controversial subject of abortion in song. It has also surfaced in the work of Neil Young, Madonna, Sinead O’Connor, and Lauryn Hill, among others. In “Abortion Papers,” Jackson approaches the matter carefully (and ambiguously): rather than presenting a dogmatic political perspective, he personalizes it through the story of a conflicted girl raised in a deeply religious home and her Bible-admonishing father. In his notes for the track, Jackson wrote, “I have to do it in a way so I don’t offend girls who have gotten abortions or bring back guilt trips so it has to be done carefully…. I have to really think about it.” 
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.