2/24, 6:40a: Conservatives are ripping Politico’s Alexander Burns for incorrectly identifying the object of Newt Gingrich’s criticism as Barack Obama’s opposition to a partial birth abortion ban rather than the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Read this Newsbusters piece and this Red State piece. I’m also heartened by the volume of commenters who called Burns out… who correctly identified and explained Obama’s BAIPA flak.

2/23, 10:36a: When I wrote yesterday of the unforeseen consequences for the Left of making an issue of contraception, I didn’t see this one coming. But it’s rich.

Last night during CNN’s Republican presidential debate, Newt Gingrich deftly turned a question about birth control into an indictment against the media for suppressing President Barack Obama’s opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act when he was state senator…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWBYxlx5RI[/youtube]

Gingrich said:

You did not once during the 2008 campaign ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. If we’re going to debate about who is the extremist on this issues, it is President Obama, who, as a state senator, voted to protect doctors who killed babies.

The Washington Post has attempted to refute Gingrich’s statement, but its corroboration only shows it was a Fox News journalist, not a member of the mainstream media, who asked Obama about his votes; and it was conservative Bill Bennett who broached the topic on CNN; and it was Obama’s Republican opponent John McCain who brought it up during a debate.

About the latter WashPo did admit:

That turn of events would align with Gingrich’s media worldview, which is that you cannot rely on the left-leaning media to pose tough questions to liberal politicians. Such labor thus defaults to their political opponents.

and:

Yet if you consider what Gingrich may have intended to say – i.e., that Obama wasn’t pressed personally by the “elite media” on this question – there may be some daylight here for the speaker.

Having lived through it, I know MSM went overboard to explain away Obama’s support of infanticide, quite the opposite of their interrogation of Republican candidates for any shred of evidence that they would ban contraceptives if only given the chance.

In fact, MSM’s ignorance on this topic lingers. Last night a Politico journalist incorrectly thought Gingrich was talking about Obama’s opposition as state senator to a partial birth abortion ban and jumped in to prove MSM didn’t ignore those heinous votes – by quoting Fox News.

Another reader and I pointed out the reporter’s error, which to his credit he did semi-correct. (“I may have been wrong….”)

Last night on CNN Air Fleischer used Gingrich’s comment to drive home the point of MSM bias…

For clarification purposes I might add Gingrich was in part (intentionally or not) referring to a companion bill to BAIPA when he stated Obama “voted to protect doctors who killed babies.”

That was SB 1663, which would have amended the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 to require that the abortionist have a second physician present to provide an independent assessment of an abortion survivor’s medical condition and plan of care, if any. Obviously, it is in the abortionist’s best interest that survivors die, which was what this bill attempted to preclude.

As one person wrote, “The gruesome abortions by abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell highlight the real world results of what Obama was defending. Children were born and then killed by putting scissors in the back of their neck and snipping their spinal cord.”

But Obama was willing to give abortionists like Gosnell the benefit of the doubt. Obama saw no conflict of interest in an abortionist who was being paid to kill a baby to provide proper medical care to that baby if the abortion failed. Read Obama’s chilling thoughts on pages 32-33 of the transcript, including his dehumanized descriptions of abortion survivors.

It remains to be seen whether MSM will continue to unquestionably accept Obama’s false and flimsy excuses for opposing BAIPA and its companion bills, but at this point his Republican opponents are keeping the issue alive.

Here is a record of Obama’s votes and his floor speeches opposing BAIPA.

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