Barack Obama’s Blagojevich Scandal Shows Abortion Reduction Promises False

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 9, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Barack Obama’s Blagojevich Scandal Shows Abortion Reduction Promises False

by Steven Ertelt
December 9, 2008

LifeNews.com Note: Steven Ertelt is the editor of LifeNews.com.

Millions of Americans who may otherwise have voted for his opponent supported Barack Obama because he promised change. Obama was supposed to be the hope of something new and different — a way to transcend the bitter and divisive partisan politics that swallowed the two previous presidential elections.

With the scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, we already know the more things change the more they stay the same.

Barack Obama has not been officially inaugurated as our next president yet a scandal of epic proportions involves one of his close political allies, his own credibility and that of his main circle of confidants.

For those of us in the pro-life community, it confirms everything we already knew about the man who made one his first acts as a presidential candidate a promise to the nation’s largest abortion business to be their lap dog. Some change.

Let me touch on the events of the last 24 hours and come back full circle to the abortion issue.

On Tuesday morning, federal agents arrested pro-abortion Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on numerous corruption charges — the most offensive of which was his apparent plan to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder or in exchange for a cushy white collar job or board of directors slot for his wife.

Barack Obama told reporters he had no discussions with Blagojevich about his successor.

"I was not aware of what was happening," Obama said. "I had no contact with the governor or his office and so I was not aware of what was happening."

But that’s not what senior Obama advisor David Axlerod told Fox News in November.

"I know he’s talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them," he said.

Of course, Obama officials are now backing off the statement given the potential political and legal fallout for the president-elect.

Axlerod — who has a job as a senior White House advisor wrapped up — backtracked in a statement to ABC News saying, "I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the President-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss the subject."

How can that be when Obama is along-time political ally — having not only endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006 but having served as a top gubernatorial advisor in his first run for the state legislature in 2002?

Obama went from an unknown state lawmaker to a Senate candidate to the Democratic presidential nominee not on his own — he had help from the infamously corrupt Chicago political machine.

It’s a machine that he paid back with his first decision after his election as president — the selection of pro-abortion Chicago-based Congressman Rahm Emanual as his White House chief of staff.

And, according to ABC News, Emanual, Obama and two Blagojevich aides were the brain trust behind Blagojevich’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign. How is it that Obama put his Chicago political buddy into the top office in the state and now says his senior advisor really didn’t have a conversation with the governor about his successor?

Here’s more: Emanuel told the New Yorker earlier this year that he and Obama "participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor. We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two."

Blagojevich enthusiastically endorsed Obama for his Senate seat and Obama returned the favor with a 2006 re-election endorsement for Blagojevich — even though questions had already risen about Blagojevich’s corruption.

As late as August 2006 Obama said Blagojevich "has delivered consistently on behalf of the people of Illinois."

The Illinois governor delivered for Obama just months later by reserving the Old State Capitol for Obama’s announcement of his presidential candidacy in January 2007.

Barack Obama is nothing new. There’s no change, no difference, no hope and no post-partisanship. It’s the same ole political game of quid pro quos and the same is true when it comes to abortion.

By July 2007, Obama promised Planned Parenthood he would do their bidding saying, "I will not relent and Planned Parenthood will not relent."

He followed up the comments with a promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act that would make unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy for any reason the national law of the land. It would overturn hundreds of pro-life laws nationwide that have reduced abortions and saved countless millions of lives.

Though he repeatedly voted against a bill to stop infanticide — at a hospital in Chicago — Obama said he never did and called pro-life groups liars for exposing him.

Now we know either Obama or his top lieutenant is a liar — because either he spoke with the governor about his Senate replacement or Axlerod was deceptive.

For that to happen — and for Obama’s first decision as the next president to be the naming of a pro-abortion Chicago political machine buddy as his chief of staff — tells us everything we need to know about the man. He’s a political gameplayer from day one and his promises at reducing abortions likely deceived enough voters to help him win the election by a wider margin.

If, after this scandal and the pro-abortion appointments he’s made, you still think Obama will try to reduce abortions, I have a Senate seat to sell you.

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