lawl

he lost me on telco immunity. thank god i live in a state where my protest vote for barr isn't going to mean shit.

If I'm elected, my first act is to spike all water supplies with RU-486.

Maybe I am naive but I feel like he's saying that he wants to increase sex-ed and have the kids be informed, but still have the overall message be that teens should wait.

I could be wrong though.

guess what dipshits? he has to pander to the right to get the necessary votes. it's like you've never encountered politicians before. this is what happens. barack needs to court the right to get the swing votes. it's not rocket science you whiny fucking ignorant asswhipes.

A vote for anyone but Obama is a vote for more hard core republicans on the Supreme Court, the revocation of Roe v. Wade and the further shredding of the Constitution.

The far lefties are why George W. is in the White House.

Wow. Just, uh, wow.

Either he's pandering, or he really thinks this. Either way, I'd really like to ask all the people on DKOS who kept insulting "Middle America" (the reason I quit going there--I was really, really sick of hearing about how stupid and racist everyone in flyover country is) whether they a) still think Obama's not a politican and b) still think that all the Clinton voters in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania were voting as stupid racists or maybe, just maybe, as people who are cynical of "inspiration" and wanted someone practical whose views they understood?

you do know that this is the same position held by hillary, don't you?

What a shit sandwich this last month has been from Obama's campaign.

A vote for Obama just as much as a waste as voting for McCain. Besides Obama is Black, he needs to do everything in his power to actually get elected. I bet you all wish Hilary would have stuck it out even longer dontcha.

I still don't get it.

Somebody please, please, please tell me: Who told you Obama was a liberal? Who????

Please, for God's sake, stop freaking out every single day when Obama proves for the 25th consecutive year in public life, and counting, that he is not a liberal. Never was!

This is getting really tiresome.

There's no sense in trying to turn Obama into Mr Ultra Liberal. Maybe the Left isn't as Left as it used to be? He grew up in the 1960's. That's not that much different than the late 50's. And not very Liberal.

This is the SAME position held by Hillary Clinton and John Edwards during their run.

BTW: this is far more liberal than anything you will get from John McCain. Wake up morons, America is NOT a liberal nation. Stop thinking Seattle represents the majority of Americans.

@8: If you're talking to me, I don't think it matters whether that was Hilary's position or not. The point was that now, Obama's talking like a politician and a rather-more-right-than-expected politician, and everyone's reacting with shock and horror. Is the "inspiration" going to make up for it? Is he going to get back more voters than he loses?

Personally, *I* would prefer a candidate who said 1) I'm not religious and I don't want to talk about religion at all and 2) didn't attempt to appease and triangulate on abortion but I doubt I'll see that in MY lifetime.

Glad I haven't sent him any campaign donations yet. His actions the past few weeks would really make me regret having done so.

We learned from the 2004 election that the so-called "values voters" are a potent and valuable voting bloc. All of a sudden we have this candidate, Obama, who has made some significant in-roads with the values voter crowd, while McCain struggles to win them over - with statements like this one, his campaign is clearly trying to exploit that.

It's abstinence only education that's bad. I can't believe you're that stupid, ECB. Abstinence has always been and always will be a part of comprehensive sex ed. ALWAYS.

Never mind the fact that there isn’t exactly an epidemic of silly, fickle women suddenly declaring “whoops, tee-hee, mental distress” late in pregnancy so they can get dangerous, costly abortions

That might be because late-term abortions have always been illegal except in cases of extreme health exceptions. The clinics that perform those procedures also would never perform it for a woman who simply missed the boat on getting a legal, elective abortion. But the fact that few women would seek out a late-term abortion on a whim doesn't mean that it shouldn't be illegal.

And, by the way, that standard was set in place by Roe v. Wade and is a fundamental part of all mainstream pro-choice advocacy. Again, I find it hard to believe you're that stupid.

I didn't (and don't) support Obama because he's a flaming liberal. I support him because he's not a mouth-breathing absolutist.

The late term abortion thing always makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Damn near everyone agrees that it's an undesirable outcome for all involved, but if you are pro-choice you get labeled as pro-partial birth abortion. If you express a belief that late term abortions should be a "controlled procedure" you get labeled as an anti-choice woman hater.

It seems like there should be room for intelligent compromise, but apparently not.

"...your embrace of telecom immunity, your vow to expand Bush’s faith-based programs, and your backtracking on Iraq withdrawal..."

where do you lift your talking points from? buckley? krauthammer?

1] obama supports striking title II from the FISA bill in the senate.

2] obama's "faith based programs" are actually a rejection of bush's, and a roll-back to the already-existing-pre-bush community programs, building and expanding on those (not bush's)

3]where is the "backtracking" you're talking about? he's been saying that since the HRC debates -- a 16-month plan based on the facts of the moment. Obama invariably said the U.S. had to be "as careful about getting out of Iraq as we were careless in getting in."

i thought you were grown up and could handle "nuance". or do HRC supporters sport the same lizard brain as the conservatives?

why do you feel the need to spit out the lame, debunked talking points of the common enemy?

Do you think that maybe he was preemptively trying to shoot down a crappy argument from insane pro-lifers? I can imagine someone whining "but those women are just going to claim that mental distress constitutes an extreme emergency," so he was just trying to avoid their slippery slope.

I agree with everything he said, and I didn't feel he pandered to anyone. I'm also pro-choice. Put down the caffeine, Erica.

Lefties: Obama is done courting you. He's got the left. He could dress like Hitler and still have the left. Courting the lefties is a waste of effort at this point. Now he's going for the right. He's trying for the "Maybe that colored fella ain't so bad after all" vote. And it's working.

Expect Obama to be vocally supportive of: Jesus, our troops, John McCain's military record, gun ownership, the colors red, white and blue, and the like. Do not expect him to be overly vocal on: abortion, gay marriage, legalizing marijuana, the right to burn the American flag, and the like.

This election will have a conservative Democrat vs. a liberal Republican. I mean, the fucking NRA hates McCain's guts. Obama's looking to win historically Republican states. He'll win. We'll make some history. And we'll get back some of what we lost under Bush.

Just nod your head knowingly when his conservative side is showing.

@17,
Wrong, all the major choice groups I know of include mental illness in health exception. Obama seems to not want to, as he says, to keep women from aborting 8 month fetus's because they feel blue. That's both sexist, and a gross misunderstanding of why women have these kind of abortions.

As for abstinence. I don;t think schools should be advocating a morality that is clearly christian, or telling kids anything is sacred. Leave that to churches.

@19,

To be fair, real pro-choice advocates, like, say, the folks at Planned Parenthood and NARAL, don't feel that way. Their position on late-term abortion is that it should only be used for severe health problems. This outrage is entirely manufactured by people who are fine with the female candidate for president taking a nuanced stand on abortion, but the male candidate has to be an absolutist, even beyond the positions of pro-choice organizations.

I think this just another example of Obama's tone deafness. Yes, this is the same position as HRC and JE. But the way BHO expressed it was just so back-asswards.

It came off as some weird liberal inverse of the infamous R "southern strategy". In modern elections it is the extreme ends of the parties that are expendable.

The only problem is when you actually believe your guy operates from a place of truth and integrity. Obama does not. He is just another politician.

No news here.

Taking his word at face value, I see nothing wrong with this.

The first one, a ban on late-term abortions with a rigorous exception for the health of the mother is perfectly reasonable, and in fact is in keeping with almost every other liberal democracy in the world.

The second, emphasizing both sex-ed and abstinence should be objectionable to no one, unless they have an ideological axe to grind. A combination of sex-ed and abstinence ed, in concert, is unquestionably the most effective way to reduce pregnancy.

@23,

Since when is "emotional distress" the same thing as mental illness?

Under current supreme court doctrine women need only find a doctor willing to assert that the mothers health is in jeopardy. "Health" is extremely broadly construed. This relatively unfettered access to later-term procedures is uniquely American. Many Euro countries have specific thresholds beyond which abortions are extremely difficult to obtain.

Like it or not, the notion of putting more-objective limitations on later-term procedures is a moderate position not solely taken by clinic-bombing psychos and 'values' voters.

Obama is going to be reasonable. That is the difference. He's capable of reasonable compromise.

Aborting a 7 or 8 or 9 month fetus is getting harder to justify to most REASONABLE Americans because babies born prematurely at that age have a very good chance to live. So it's reasonable to require a physical health issue, otherwise aborting a viable fetus is just to much for most ethical people, and doctors, to accept.

Obama's not going to be the liberal you all want. He intends to win, first of all, and he has a religious, moral conscience. Get over it. Go kill your 8 month old fetuses somewhere else.

@26, to what point do we advocate abstinence, until 18, 21, marriage, simply later? What? Why not help kids to be responsible and give them the tools to decide for themselves when to have sex, instead of telling them to not.

@29 So lets say you have a dead fetus, but carrying it to term is not going to damage your physical health (this happens), under a no mental health exemption you are SOL until the thing comes out which may be at month 10 or 11. That is not reasonable. I say let women and doctors, in consultation with whomever they see fit, make these difficult decisions.

And one more thing, Erica, you seem to know what's best for everyone regarding plastic bags. Yeah, I need my government to tell me whether or not I can give my customers a plastic bag!! But the government shouldn't dare tell someone they can't abort a 9 month old fetus huh? That's how you roll..... liberal logic at it's finest.

No one in American electoral politics courts the left anymore, if they ever did. Can we stop pretending otherwise?

What little organization the left can claim has very little power to overcome corporate control over the electoral process in this country. The main presence the left has in our electoral system is as a shadow-- constantly invoked as a charicature in order to be swiftly dismissed, the empty signifier against which boundaries of legitimate discourse (support for neoliberalism, war on drugs, war on terror, environmental tokenism) are maintained.

A few politicians might emerge from the left and try to court moderates in a way that explicitly or implicitly disavows most of the people they used to work with, but these politicians mainly lose anyway. Many more politicians might be moderates who borrow from left social movement language because the language of moderation is incapable of acknowledging let alone addressing the incredible dissatisfaction many in America feel toward the growing impoverishment of the working class and the decline of middle class standards of living. But no one should be shocked when these moderates show no backbone. They're trying to gain power, not redistribute it.

@30, well if the fetus is dead, get your abortion, technically at that point you are not ending a pregnancy.

great article on the polarization of the abortion issue:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/11/0080278

@17: Actually, the US Supreme Court has consistently held that late-term abortion bans must include exceptions to protect the physical and mental health of the woman. Only Thomas and Scalia have voted against those exceptions. So in fact, not only is holding the position that there should be no mental-health exception not "part of all mainstream pro-choice activism," it isn't supported by the Supreme Court, either--except two of its most extreme right-wing members. Sorry you think that's "stupid," but it happens to be the truth.

@33, well under laws only allowing for physical health you can't. The procedure itself is banned, regardless of the life of the fetus.

Regardless of what happens, half of all women getting abortions will be anti-choice and rich women in their third trimester will just fly to another country to deal with it.

I know! Let's vote for McSame - he'll be even more draconian!

another article from gorney on supreme courts upholding of the partial-birth ban. this wasn't a late-term ban but a procedure ban; however both this article and the first linked underscore how procedure-focused bans are a slippery slope:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=law_and_revulsion

@30,

I'm going to say it again: abstinence always has been and always will be a part of comprehensive sex ed. It's the only 100 percent effective way to avoid pregnancy or STDs and, as such, no sane sex-ed educator is going to exclude it from the curriculum. Real abstinence ed does not tell kids never to have sex until marriage. That's the domain of abstinence-only education, which ECB is disingenuously claiming Obama supports.

If the fetus is dead, then the point is moot. No one except the craziest of crazy motherfuckers is going to keep a woman from aborting a dead fetus.

I say let women and doctors, in consultation with whomever they see fit, make these difficult decisions.

That is in no way a mainstream pro-choice position. There are limits. There should be limits. Anything else effectively says that late-term abortions for any reason are a-okay. Most doctors are too ethical to perform a late-term abortion for no good reason. Most women aren't dumb enough to seek an elective abortion in the third trimester. That doesn't preclude the possible existence of unethical doctors or stupid women. We have laws for a reason, even to ban things that people don't do very often.

ECB, is Obama's position the same or different than Hillary's? Is Obama's position now the same or different than any time in the past? Why does Obama have a 100% rating from NARAL Pro Choice America?

@30

Until we no longer educate them. Which is usually around the time they are no longer minors. One can advocate abstinence while still recognizing that some of them will not listen; that's what the sex-ed part is about.

The dead fetus example is a silly one. It's not illegal under current law, and no sane person argues that it should be.

Decide for yourself whether these quotes (which were published in some kind of weird wannabe-hip Christian magazine) are consistent with what he had to say on the issue last fall:

I’m all for education for our young people, encouraging abstinence until marriage, but I also believe that young people do things regardless of what their parents tell them to do and I don’t want my daughters ending up in really difficult situations because I didn’t communicate to them, how to protect themselves if they make a mistake. I think we’ve got to have that kind of comprehensive view that says family planning and education for our young people and so forth – to prevent teen pregnancies, to prevent the kinds of situations that lead to women having to struggle with these difficult decisions and we should be supportive of those efforts. That’s an area where there should be some agreement.

Its posts like these that make me glad that the Slog is not a representative sample of the population. Also makes me realize that feminism has stalled.

I am enjoying seeing the starry-eyed gaze of wonder fade from the eyes of the Obamatons. It was only a matter of time. I hope you still bother to vote.

@39 - Right on, finally a voice of reason in these comments.

@40 - I bet you won't get an answer. The headline Erica wrote today was just too sensational for her to pass up. Even though, as you say, nothing has changed... 100% rating...

Now, let's talk about how to ban plastic bags, not abortions. Abortions should always be available under any circumstance, right Erica?

HAHAHA! You poor little moon maidens!
Blank's right, the honeymoon is over, but boy what a quickie that one was!
I love how all the O kids are now huffing for a logical reason for the apparent rightward drift, as if to find a good tactical reason would make the sting of discovering Our Saviour not being a real feminist go away.
Dream on, kids. The country is sick of this abortion debate. Most adults want less of them, and that is a good development (LEGAL AND RARE). Get used to it. And vote or else.

I give in. If trying to get Obama elected somehow means having to listen to and read endless handwringing about whether he's liberal enough, just crown McCain King of the Universe and abolish democracy, because I may go insane by November otherwise.

Future shameless Obama pandering pronouncements:

1) Torture’s A-OK! In fact, Jayzus loves it when we torture!

2) On second thought, all the homos really are gonna fry in hayll!

3) Anyone who doesn’t support endless war with Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran is a terrifyin’, traitorous commie terrahist. Terrah! Terrah! Terrah! Boo!!

@39. The law bans the procedure. The fetus being dead not withstanding. There are also other fetal abnormalities that essentially result in an alive but either brain dead, or so disabled that death occurs with days, fetus, but that have no physical health consequences on the mother. That is way both PP and NARAL demanded that health include mental health, so that in those situations a woman does not face the mental anguishes and blueness that such things bring.

And to excerpt 42's quote "I’m all for education for our young people, encouraging abstinence until marriage". That's not just saying not having sex is an option, its telling kids to not fuck until marriage. But sure, we can tell kids the rather obvious point that abstinence can't get them pregnant, its should take about 10 seconds before we move on to giving them useful information so they, like everybody else in this country can have sex without that all important wedding ring.

Those quotes are so carefully worded they could mean anything. Let's teach sex-ed and abstinence, and give good information to teenagers. Let's have (the same) restrictions on late-term abortions (that we have now). Campaigning, people. Simmer down.

@45 - I'm an "O kid" who was never under any delusion that Obama would be a big flaming liberal. That is why I supported him from the start. Because he's reasonable. He can get things done in a practical fair minded way. None of this should be a surprise and just to be clear - Obama's position on abortion has not changed one way or the other. People like Erica don't do research, they don't understand the issues, they invent things up in their own mind.. and then they right sloppy, sensational, inaccurate headlines like the one above. Headline = "Prohibit Late Term Abortions" - HOW IS THAT SUBSTANTIATED, EVEN BY THE ARTICLE ITSELF?

Sometimes I really loathe "liberals".

Can we get several things straight?

"Mental distress" is not necessarily the same thing as mental illness. Usually people choose words on hot-button issues really carefully; if he had meant "mental illness", he probably would have said that, don't you think? I think it is really offensive and counterproductive when people start conflating the two. What, now someone's feelings of distress because she doesn't want to be pregnant are in the same category as someone else's bipolar disorder or schizophrenia?
Shut up.

And, as others have said, abstinence education is smart. It's abstinence-ONLY education that is stupid. I think we can all agree that it's best not to have sex until you are ready for it and want to; with that in mind, it's also best to help people have the tools to make that a reality.
Shut up about that, too.

Nice little hit job on Obama.

Headline:
Obama: Prohibit Late-Term Abortions

Except, he favors late term abortion rights if the health of the mother is an issue.

@48,

At what point does Obama say he supports the partial-birth abortion ban? What he supports is a common sense late-term abortion policy, something that mainstream pro-choice organizations have always supported. And, if that's the reason pro-choice organizations supported a mental health exception, they need to seriously reevaluate. The law should have included an exception for the death or probable death of the fetus.

I'll also add that "emotional distress" has long been used by women seeking in abortions where abortion is mostly illegal. Anti-choicers in particular are well aware of what those kinds of exceptions mean. They mean what you want: that there's effectively no prohibition against elective late-term abortion.

@53, if that's what he supports he needs to come out and say that. And its not just bad fetuses, its also mental illness, which can be exacerbated by pregnancy. And things like the child being the product of rape or incest, or perhaps an abusive relationship the woman was not able to escape from. I want a woman to only have to confide that to her doctor, not file charges against the person if she doesn't want to, or in the event of prosecution to have to defend herself in court.

Sorry but when it comes down to it, I would rather favor a law that was overly concerned with the health of the woman than the potential life of the fetus. That means a law that allows for both physical and mental health concerns.

And to the people who are bitching about criticisms of Obama. He is not Bush, or RonPaul, we can disagree with him and still support him. This is not a cult.

@ 40: No, he has changed his position. What he's saying now is that we should change the law to get rid of the rather vague mental health exemption and make it only apply to serious clinical mental health diseases. And not that it matters since she's not the nominee, but Clinton supported the life or health exemption to late-term abortion bans, including mental health as agreed upon by every member of the Supreme Court except Thomas and Scalia.

Him and his fucking bullshit religion. I'm not voting for this guy. Glad I haven't sent him any money. Let him get his money from right wingers. He sounds more like Bush than McCain. Asshole.

I find some of this post purposely duplicitous. The failure of abstinence only education, which Obama is not talking about, has been well documented. Abstinence as part of sex ed, not.

@48

You are wrong again. The law does not ban the procedure for dead fetuses. Please do some research before you spout off.

Good to see the MSM like SLOG carrying water for the far-right in their attempt to attack Obama.

After all, it isn't like McCain would be worse or keep us in Iraq Iran Iceland for the next 100 years, right?

Giffy is right on all accounts. And for those of you who DON'T know, a dead fetus is not "allowed" to be "terminated". Currently, under the new law that Bushy passed, if you have a dead baby inside you, and it's during even the 2nd trimester, you cannot abort it.

It will cause you significant pain, and mental anguish. You may even bleed out. But nooooooo, you can't have a D&C because it's classified as a "late-term abortion" that isn't (at that point) deadly to the mother. So yes, there needs to be a better definition of 'mental health' applied to this and to 2nd term abortions too.

And quit talking about how "nuanced" Obama's positions are. That is the worst word ever to describe a politician and I am going to have to hear it a billion damn times until the election. /slit wrists

UGH.

@59: You are wrong. Do some research on the new law passed by bush and the GOP congress.

Unless new legislation changed that law (from what, 2003?) that I am not aware of.

@54,

And in almost all those cases, the woman can get an abortion before the third trimester.

@61,

The Partial Birth Abortion Act does not ban D&Cs. It bans one specific form of late-term abortion, intact dilation and extraction. There are other ways to remove a dead fetus from a woman's body and the ban does not address those methods.

@50 for the fucking win.

@61:

That is not true. You can still terminate a pregnancy, whether the fetus is alive or dead, pretty much up to the point a few weeks before viability. This can vary a bit state to state but it is generally considered to be 20-22 weeks. I know this, I work in healthcare. The procedure may be different depending on the situation and point in the pregnancy. For instance, if you found out through an amniocentesis at say 20 weeks that your baby had Trisomy 18 and wouldn't live very long after birth you might choose to terminate. Most women would opt to have labor induced at that point rather than a D&C.

Personally, as the mother of preemies born 11 weeks early, I think there should definitely be limits on terminations after viability, with the exception of the health of the mother or serious fetal defects. You can't tell me as a mother that a 7 month old baby is the same as an 8 week old embryo.

@60 and Giffy in general,

I wiki'd The Partial Birth Abortion Act, and it would seem that a dead fetus does not qualify as a partial birth, which is what the law bans.:

"Removing a dead fetus does not meet the federal legal definition of "partial-birth abortion," which specifies that partial live delivery must precede "the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus."[11]"

-from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial-Birth_Abortion_Ban_Act#cite_note-10

That quote is from the subsection "Partial Birth Abortion defined by law."

Could you, since you are so resolute in the opinion that a dead fetus falls within the ban, give references to such legislation?

Also, I have not seen a justifiable argument against teaching abstinence in conjunction with contraceptive measures. If the goal is to prevent teen pregnancy and the proliferation of STD's then I think it paramount to use all possible tools. Last I checked abstinence-only education is the culprit for putting moral imperative as reasoning behind said abstinence. I find it ignorant to summarily define abstinence as "abstinence can't get them pregnant, its should take about 10 seconds"