The Washington Post reports that the National Organization for Women has distributed an email to its membership repeating the thoroughly discredited claim that Obama is weak on abortion rights:

A national women’s rights group supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) distributed an e-mail yesterday accusing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of being soft on abortion rights, revisiting an eleventh-hour attack that some analysts credited with swaying female voters in New Hampshire.

The e-mail from Rosemary J. Dempsey, president of the Connecticut National Organization for Women, told members that Obama’s record during his time in the Illinois Senate included several instances in which he voted “present” instead of yes or no on abortion-related legislation.

The e-mail quotes Bonnie Grabenhofer, the president of Illinois NOW, as saying that “voting present on those bills was a strategy that Illinois NOW did not support,” and adding: “We made it clear at the time that we disagreed with the strategy… . Voting present doesn’t provide a platform from which to show leadership and say with conviction that we support a woman’s right to choose and these bills are unacceptable.”

I have had it with this ridiculous smear campaign. Read the fucking New York Times article—the same piece that was pushed by the Clinton campaign before they decided to go dirty. Whether or not Illinois NOW sanctioned the strategy, it was a deliberate attempt by a pro-choice group to safeguard abortion rights:

In at least 45 instances, Mr. Obama voted [present] with large numbers of fellow Democrats as part of the tactical skirmishing with Republicans over the budget.

Seven other times, he voted that way as part of a broad strategy devised by abortion rights advocates to counter anti-abortion bills.

Pam Sutherland, president of Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, said Mr. Obama was one of the senators with a strong stand for abortion rights whom the organization approached about using the strategy. Ms. Sutherland said the Republicans were trying to force Democrats from conservative districts to register politically controversial no votes.

Ms. Sutherland said Mr. Obama had initially resisted the strategy because he wanted to vote against the anti-abortion measures.

“He said, ‘I’m opposed to this,’” she recalled.

But the organization argued that a present vote would be difficult for Republicans to use in campaign literature against Democrats from moderate and conservative districts who favored abortion rights.

Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who was in the Illinois Senate with Mr. Obama from 1998 through 2002, said she and Mr. Obama voted present on the anti-abortion bills.

“It’s just plain wrong to imply that voting present reflected a lack of leadership,” Ms. Madigan said. “In fact, it was the exact opposite.”

Last time the Clinton campaign tried to portray Obama as weak on choice, it ended badly:

Three New Hampshire Democratic leaders who signed a letter two days before the state’s primary at the request of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, attacking Barack Obama as soft in his support for abortion rights, are asking Obama supporters in the state to put the rifts of the primary campaign behind them and praising Obama for being “strongly pro-choice.”

Of the two dozen prominent women who signed the critical letter, e-mailed by the Clinton campaign to a list of supporters and undecided voters, three have now signed their names to another missive asking abortion rights supporters in the state to come together and take comfort in the fact that all of the Democratic presidential candidates are firmly pro-choice. One of the three Clinton supporters went even further, saying in an interview Thursday that signing the letter attacking Obama was a “mistake.”

Katie Wheeler, a former state senator, said the Clinton campaign had not given her background information about Obama’s record on abortion rights when it asked her to sign the letter calling him weak on the issue, and said that, as a result, she did not understand the context of the votes that the letter was attacking him over.

“It should never have gotten to the point where anyone thought Obama was not pro-choice,” said Wheeler, a founder of the New Hampshire chapter of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “I don’t think the Clinton campaign should have done that. It was divisive and unnecessary…I think it was a mistake and I’ve spoken to the national [Clinton campaign] and told them it caused problems in New Hampshire, and am hoping they won’t do it again.”

Again, Obama has a 100% rating with NARAL Pro-Choice America. Yesterday former NARAL pres Kate Michelman endorsed Obama.

And I’m sure nobody cares, but when I was a member of NOW at the University of Virginia and it looked like a pro-life hippie was the frontrunner for president, I and a few other supporters of abortion rights tried to contact the national organization to prevent this from happening. Turns out NOW couldn’t care less whether the chapter head of a major university campus is against abortion rights. But they have no problem with using pro-choice sentiments to damage the campaign of a pro-choice candidate.

NOW, you suck. I’m giving money to NARAL.