WashPo readers protest absurd “fact check” of Obama infanticide ad
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.
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**.”
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.
My friend Yuri Nesterenko is founder of the “Anti-sexual Stronghold.” The group accepts the minimum amount of sexual activity necessary to maintain population (probably about 1% of that currently going on). He lived in Russia when I told him about abortion survivor Gianna Jessen, aborted when her biological “mother” was 7 1/2 months pregnant. He wrote, “I’m surprised that abortions that late in the pregnancy would be legal in the US. I don’t think they would be in Russia.”
I can’t “fathom” how anyone can credibly believe”fact-checkers” who dismiss obvious plain-as-day facts they can’t “fathom” relate to their golden idol in 1600 Pennsylvania.
for being so politically involved, the commenters seem a bit dim on what the bill called for.
the abortion survivor does say she was discarded, and the story is apparently that for some reason, in that span of time in which the discarding happened, someone assessed apgar score (at-birth clinical indicators of life and health). when life was detected, clinical action was taken.
it is possible that this body was being checked to document and record that the body was, in fact, dead, after being “discarded.”
this is merely a matter of language. For the births I have attended, I would say that the placenta emerged and was “discarded,” even though the OB eyes the placenta and notes anything unusual. The placenta-eating advocates might describe this procedure exactly as “discarding” the placenta, having no worth in itself except what it can indicate about the pregnancy that has just come to term, while the placenta-eating advocates would value the placenta for its nutritional value, or whatever other value might be seen in a placenta post-delivery.
I would not argue with a placenta-eater claiming the placenta was “discarded” the moment it emerged from birth canal, even if it was kept for investigation due to some sign.
whatever was being done, it was ad hoc or common clinical response or by some established clinical protocol.
either way: the clinicians were at great liberty to do what they judged was fitting.
the purpose of the law was to require a certain path: you must do what you can to sustain the life of a baby in this situation.
the law was to set that as a law, not up to the discretion of the clinicians. Along with Ms. Ohden, there are plenty of actual, real-world cases of babies delivered in legit medical settings where the baby was expected to be dead already, but was born alive. Jill Stanek has testified that she has seen this.
for us liberals, one sob story is all we need to change the course of all policy, as long as the sob story fits our political agenda. If it does not, we have this “minimize the issue and ridicule the story teller” button.
A no-voter ID advocate can travel to Washington DC to claim how he or she cannot make it to an ID location, and all of us libeals cheer her, and wail about her plight – despite the fact that the appearance in DC pretty much demonstrates that the person could have gotten to some ID center.
THat’s how we roll.
I’ve put this up before but think it is worth placing here again.
Tim: The Boy Who Wasn’t Meant To Be
By Denise Noe
In July 1997, a couple in Oldenburg, Germany discovered that the “fetus,” or “unborn child,” the woman was carrying had Down Syndrome. According to the Wikipedia, the woman was in her twenty-fifth week of pregnancy.
In order to understand what happened next, it is necessary to belabor (no pun intended) the obvious. There are about four weeks in a month. The first month of a pregnancy ends at the fourth week. The first trimester ends at the twelfth week. The second trimester, or sixth month, of pregnancy ends at the twenty-fourth week. This mother had entered her seventh month of pregnancy – a time period in which premature babies are born and often survive.
After learning of the Down Syndrome, the couple decided to abort the pregnancy. The pregnant woman underwent the abortion. The baby expelled from her vaginal canal breathed, moved, and had a beating heart. Medical personnel expected him to die soon so did nothing to treat him.
Ten hours later the baby’s heart was still beating and he was still breathing although his body temperature had dropped a great deal. Physicians decided to treat him.
As a result both of the abortion and the lack of immediate medical treatment, the boy who would be named Tim but called the “Oldenburg Baby” by the German media had more severe disabilities than most other Down Syndrome babies. Extensive damage had been done to his brain, eyes, and lungs. In the first years of his life, he required several operations.
Tim’s parents had the legal right to raise him but did not wish to. Quoting directly from the Wikipedia, “Tim’s biological mother needed psychotherapeutic care after the failed abortion, and died a few years later.”
The physician who aborted Tim and failed to treat him for ten hours after his having unexpectedly lived through the procedure was fined 90 days’ pay in 2004 for failing to give care to a newborn.
Tim spent much of the first year of his life in a children’s clinic. In 1998, a foster family took him in. The badly damaged little boy showed signs of autism. In 2003, he was given what is referred to as “dolphin therapy.” The practice is controversial because some observers believe it is not a “therapy” but only a recreational activity. However, for whatever reasons, the boy seemed to make improvements in digestion, motor skills, and even speech after contact with these marine mammals. Since 2004, he has attended a school for children with disabilities.
What is to be made of this tragedy? The first lesson to be drawn is that “abortions” make little sense performed at a time period when it is possible for the aborted to live outside the womb. It is sheer moral insanity to be desperately rushing to save a baby in one area of the hospital that was born prematurely while ignoring one that was forced out of the uterus at exactly the same time period.
Moreover, we need to clarify that the entire issue of the woman’s body and choice ends once her body and that of the baby part ways for any reason at all.
It also points out the need to take on the issue of the custody of abortion survivors. No woman should be able to abort – with the expectation of the fetal death – and then legally have custody of a baby that happened to survive the procedure. Since abortions will be practiced regardless of whether or not they are legal, all countries need to deal with the custody issue.
Tim has extraordinary disabilities. His life has been full of pain. Inevitably, if with great discomfort, some must wonder: Was his life worth saving? Is his life worth living? Google his picture. You will see a charming smile and have the answers.
Oh the things people do to minimize their dissonance and uphold their allegiances.
Jump ship, Josh … It’s the only reasonable thing left to do.
People might want to check out this website: http://antisex.info/en/go.htm
The founder hasn’t updated it in quite awhile. He is Yuri Nesterenko and we are friends. Yes, it may seem odd for someone like me to be friends with the founder of the Antisexual Stronghold. I’m also friends with another person I met through it.
They accept sexual acts necessary to maintain stable population but that would in fact decrease sexual acts by about 99%.
I don’t support their ideology. However, it seems there would be improvements through emphasizing what separates humans from other creatures — our intellects — over the passions.
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.
Yeah, this was the part that was seriously jaw-dropping to me. Who knew that a lie only remains a lie if it’s not an OLD lie.
This guy should never be taken seriously again. Ever.
Oh, jill, I should have read the duck joke before I put my boys to bed, because they’re awake now, I’m laughing so hard. Kudos to fury60, wherever he be.
Oh my gosh guys!! Lies have a shelf-life. Who knew!?!
Somehow journalism attracks the worst people in the world. Most journalists are very bad people.
The art of obfuscation is well practiced by the MSM.
A HUGE problem with fact check sites is their selection criteria. I have yet to see any of these sites explain how they select which claims to check. And that’s a REAL problem that can hide bias.
I’ve noticed obvious bias here and there: they give Pinocchios or pants-on-fires to their preferred talking head or candidate — but on relatively inconsequential claims. Then they turn around and foist complete non-sequitur “fact checks” on those they oppose.
Perhaps the most interesting thing lately is Clinton’s speech at the DNC. One of the best speeches I’ve ever seen at a convention — possibly the best. It was a target-rich speech for fact checkers. He had more claims that could be checked, probably, than all other speeches combined at that convention.
Yet the number of claims checked by the fact checkers was in inverse proportion to this number of facts, and the sheer value of his speech in this campaign. In short, they gave him a pass.
Fact check sites are no substitute for good arguments between citizens. For Christians, it’s analogous to whether you merely recite a creed someone else wrote long ago, or whether when you recite it it’s familiar territory because your faith is the kind that plumbs its truths on your own time anyway. Arguments from authority are always weaker than literate acquaintance with the fundamental data that funds a suite of arguments.