Media Applauded

Today I applaud the media.

President Obama addressed the public in an open press conference, and he was confronted with real questions! And no one censored anything.

However, after listening to NPR on my way home tonight, I felt a little deflated. Somehow, after listening to all the questions and all the answers, the only comment NPR correspondents had to say was that Obama was akin to FDR. That's it. No specific coverage of his answers, no rebuffs, no assertions, in short--no comments! It was the most bland explanation of one of the most important media coverages in which Obama has yet participated. Could we at least comment on what happened?

Interestingly, the National Public 'We Promise We Are Unbiased' Radio (NPR) actually sent a journalist into the media room for representation at the media conference, and just as interestingly, the journalist covered absolutely nothing of the actual report. In fact, he didn't even quote questions asked by fellow reporters. Perhaps this stemmed from frustration at not being chosen for a question, but not reporting well on an event that helps America see their president is nothing short of poor journalism.

So if you haven't seen the media conference, you need to watch it (if for no other reason than to actually understand what went on). At least that way your view won't be censored.



*NOTE* For an interesting view of the media conference, see:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/25/castellanos.obama/index.html

Just highlight the address above and right click for a google search. It will take you right there.

Today I agree with President Obama.

Apparently since AIG is using "his" money to give a few of their executives bonuses, he is "outraged" (see March 16 headlines CNN), and justly so. There is definitely a right to anger when most people are barely making it, and a few chubby (just an assumption) execs decide to give themselves rewards.

Here is where I need to point out something we may not notice from general media coverage of Obama's reaction. He is angry because someone used his government handout in a way that bothered him. And you can bet there will be future accounts of this sort of thing happening anywhere he gave money. But I become extremely wary of a president who acts like Santa Claus and then gets angry when the children don't play right.

I understand there should be regulation somewhere, but my first impulse would be to regulate the reckless gift-giving so the children don't become dependent and spoiled. The problem with government cleaning up mess after mess is simply that-- the government will have to keep stepping in. If money is divvied to irresponsible people (and there's really no telling who the responsible ones are), then the government will feel responsible to create regulations to curb spending and create pay caps again and again. The cycle won't stop, and there will be too many regulations to continue with any kind of free enterprise. Stifling enterprise will certainly do nothing for stimulation.

So be careful. Be very, very careful when you get angry at rich executives and their selfish spending, because you're the next recipient of the spending bill, and your money will also be monitored. Let's hope it's still okay for you to decide how to spend it.

We have been hounded about putting a new picture up, so here it is. She weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz. when she was born and was almost 20 inches long. She is getting really big really quickly, too. We are continuing to love Ohio and our little Seattle (the baby, not the city). Brock is considering an internship this summer IN Seattle, though, so that should confuse everyone. We're excited! We love you all.

Brock and Nicole (and Seattle)

Obama and Abortion

Glenn Beck: It's an Abortion Friday!

Audio Available:

October 17, 2008 - 3:00 ET

Related Story Robert George: Obama's Abortion Extremism

GLENN: I mean, a lot of people say this show is like an abortion; why not. So we have probably the best conservative thinker, and I'm going to be real honest with you. Don't put him on yet. This guy makes me want to puke. He may -- I get so nervous. I did a show with him one time and I -- for a full hour. We left, I got in the car and one of the producers said, I thought that went well; what did you think of the show? And I said, I don't know, I couldn't think of anything except -- did I use that word right? One of the biggest brains in America, conservative thinker. He consults with everybody because they all pick his brain and he still has left, enough brain left to be on this show, which doesn't take very much. But he's here. He's from Princeton University, Professor Robert George. He's written one of the best articles on abortion that I think I have ever, ever read because it flips the pro choice thing and shows what a ridiculous, what a ridiculous argument this really is. And the reason why we're talking about it is because he says that Barack Obama is the biggest pro abortion extremist that we've ever had run for President of the United States. Did I capture that right, professor?

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Hello, Glenn, how are you? I'm doing very well. Yes, I believe the record shows and the article that you were kind enough to mention, I did my reasons for believing, that Barack Obama has the most extreme abortion record and anyone who's ever set the policies of anyone in the United States on a major party's ticket.

GLENN: He said just recently in this last debate that he never, ever -- he was not for voting, you know, to let children die in the closets at the hospital. He said there were laws on the books; he did not champion that kind of stuff.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: I'm afraid Senator Obama is not telling the truth about that. The record is very clear. Here's what happened. Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Chicago and some other nurses had the experience of watching tiny babies who had survived abortions and were temporarily alive be simply discarded without even giving comfort care. Jill Stanek found one comfort baby in a soiled linen closet just left to die without even comfort care. She brought this and others brought this kind of activity --

GLENN: Hold on just a second, Professor. Comfort care would just be somebody there with the child, right?

PROFESSOR GEORGE: If you've ever been with an elderly person who's dying and it's no longer possible to try to save them, they are headed toward death, they aren't simply discarded. They are not thrown in the refuse heap. They are not sent down to the morgue. They are given basic comfort care so that they can die as comfortably as possible. And that's true with babies who die or people at any age who die. But these babies were not even given that courtesy. Because they were survivors of abortion, they were simply discarded. And as I say, Nurse Stanek found one in a soiled linen closet, if you can imagine. She brought this to the attention of prosecutors. The attorney general of the State of New York said that he looked into it, that unfortunately there was no law in Illinois under which he could prosecute for this kind of behavior. As a result the Illinois legislature took up legislation supported by Republicans and Democrats and people who were pro choice, by the way, as well as people who are pro life, if you will, honor that pro choice idea which, of course, I'm very critical of. Anyway, there are people --

GLENN: I want to get to that in a second. Wait until you hear this, America. It's the best thought on the pro choice stuff you've ever heard. Anyway, go ahead.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Yeah, the prosecutors couldn't prosecute, they said, because the attorney general said there wasn't a law available that was adequate for a prosecution, to sustain a prosecution. There are technical reasons for that. I could go into it. So the legislature took up a bill that would fix that, that would provide a basis. It's called the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. And if it had been enacted in Illinois -- eventually it was enacted at the federal level and signed into law by President Bush. But without it babies could continue to be discarded in this way and without it they would at least be given basic comfort care. And those who were capable of surviving would be given full medical care so that they would be able to continue with their lives. A few people opposed this and the only person in the Illinois legislature to actually speak out against it and try to stop it was Barack Obama. He then made up a series of stories when he was confronted with what he had done for why he had done it. He said, for example, at one point that, well, he would have supported the bill but he was afraid that the bill would cut back on the availability of abortion itself because there was not a so-called abortion neutrality clause as there was in the federal bill. He accused people who criticized him on that of being liars. Well, then those people there at the national committee produced, Glenn, the documentary evidence showing, proving that Barack Obama had in fact voted against a bill with a neutrality clause. So the people he called liars showed that he was lying. He then shifted his story and said that the only reason that he voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was that there was already legislation on the book protecting those babies. So the trouble with that was that the attorney general was declining to prosecute precisely because there was not a law on the books adequate to the task. So Senator Obama is simply making up stories here to cover really a despicable decision that he made. He should simply admit that what he did was wrong. He was overzealous in trying to protect abortion and had gotten so overzealous that he was actually protecting a form of infanticide and that he's sorry, that people make mistakes. But he is not doing that. He is making up stories and those stories are very easily then proven to be false by anyone who looks into the facts.

GLENN: Why does he stand on partial birth abortion?

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Well, unfortunately there, too, he's on the extreme edge of the so-called pro choice movement. There are many, many people who support legal abortion, call themselves pro choice who draw the line at partial birth abortion. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of them famously said -- he was the late senator from New York -- famously said that he drew the line there because this was just too close to infanticide. The baby's 3/4 or more outside the mother's womb. The abortion is holding the baby by the feet. That's how you perform partial birth abortion. The baby's feet are being held by the abortionist. He jams a pair of Metzenbaum scissors into the skull of the baby, which the head is still in the womb and then he opens the scissors and inserts a suction device to remove the brain material and collapse the brain. I'm sorry to be graphic here but let's look the facts in the face. And even though Moynihan and a lot of other so-called choice Democrats drew the line there and said we're not going to support that, we're going to support legislation to stop that, Barack Obama did not support that legislation. Then he came up with the excuse that, well, it didn't have a health exception.

GLENN: You know what, this health exception for partial birth abortion, can anyone provide any documentation anywhere from any doctor that a woman is physically in danger if she doesn't have this procedure done? It doesn't make any sense that you would have a woman give birth than hold the baby inside her while you kill it, it doesn't make any sense. They are talking about mental health. And I'm sorry but can't you provide at least as much documentation that maybe having a woman go through that procedure might affect her mental health in a negative way later down the road?

PROFESSOR GEORGE: You're right.

GLENN: Have you ever, have you ever seen the documentation? Do they have any documentation on a woman's physical health in danger if they don't provide that particular procedure?

PROFESSOR GEORGE: There is no evidence for it. They don't have evidence for it. You can always simply deliver the baby, all right? You can always deliver the baby and that would terminate the pregnancy. There would no longer be a pregnancy, but there would be a living baby outside of the womb. I don't know if you know this case. When the partial birth abortion bill was being debated in the congress, Rick Santorum confronted Barbara Boxer who was a great pro abortion supporter, confronted her and said, look, what do you do if the baby emerges from the womb? What if the baby's head slips out? What do you do then? When does the baby have the right to life? And at one point Boxer said, "When the parents are taking the baby home from the hospital." She then had that expunged from the congressional record, that terrible comment she made. But fortunately for us in the age of C-Span, we know she made that comment because it's there archived in the C-Span coverage of the Senate debate.

GLENN: Just unbelievable.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Yeah.

GLENN: You know, we've had conversations about this before. This is the kind of stuff especially -- I mean, with the kind of crippling debt that is coming our way and the conversation that we have to have on Social Security and everything else, once you start to go down this road -- please, please correct me if I'm overstating this, but this is exactly the first kinds of steps that you have to take to be able to go through the situation that Nazi Germany went through.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Well, we always have to be careful because of the uniqueness of the Holocaust and of the sheer bigotry of the Nazis. There are many, many people of goodwill. You and I know them, Glenn. They are friends of ours. Many people of goodwill who count legal abortion. They call themselves pro choice. They are not dishonorable people. I believe they are very seriously misguided. But there is truth in what you say for this reason. It wasn't the Nazis who created the vile doctrine of Lebt unwürdig von Leben, lives unworthy of life. The Nazis picked up that slogan and that doctrine and began killing handicapped people. But it didn't begin with the Nazis. They were progressive, what they call liberal people. In the Weimar regime, doctors published a book promoting eugenics in the 1920s called Life Unworthy of Life or Lives Unworthy of Life. Only Nazis who go in for eugenics.

GLENN: Right.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: We must not go town that path. So that part of your message I agree with. Let's stop now.

GLENN: Right. It starts at -- the Nazis took that and used it for political purposes. What I'm talking about is the seeds of what can get out of control is, you wouldn't want to live that way, I wouldn't want to live that way. That's what a life worth living, right? That's how it starts?

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Yes, we need to remain deeply committed to the core principle of our civilization and of our nation and that's the profound, inherent and equal dignity of every human being irrespective not only age and class but also of age, class, side.

GLENN: It's important because as we start to go down this road of universal healthcare and we can't afford to keep everybody alive, then you start to look at, well, okay, you can't have the kidney transplant because, well, you've lived a good life anyway and you should just go away, grandpa, anyway; I'm sorry, I can't help you.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Violence is not the answer. Violence killing by abortion and euthanasia is simply not the answer.

GLENN: Give -- and I love this. Give your thesis on pro choice and how it's a ridiculous phrase.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Well, it's a mistaken label because it pushes off stage the real issue that determines where a person stands on the question of abortion and that is the legitimacy of the choice. If abortion is, as I believe it is and as I believe you can prove it is very easily as a matter of scientific fact, the intentional killing of a living human being, a member of our species, one of our tiny brothers and sisters, then if you believe that that killing is a legitimate choice, whether you call yourself pro choice or not, you are favoring abortion. You are favoring the legitimacy of abortion. It's a legitimate choice. It's not an injustice. If you are on the other side, on the pro life side, then, of course, you are opposed to abortion. So it's not a question of choice. It's a question of whether we think the action is killing an innocent person, is a grave injustice, is an ill legitimate choice or not. If you think it's legitimate, then you are for it. If not, you are against it. Compare it with slavery. Just take another example, another moral issue. Compare it with slavery. There were plenty of people at the founding of the United States -- Thomas Jefferson was one -- who said, look, slavery is a bad thing. It's terrible that we have it. I prefer a world without slavery. But the world we have is one with which slavery is integrated into our economy and into our culture and there would be dire consequences for farms and businesses where slavery is used and for the society as a whole if we abolish slavery, therefore reluctantly I'm going to support the choice of people to have a slave. But that wasn't being pro choice on slavery. That was being pro slavery. It was treating slavery as a legitimate choice. Again the issue is, is it legitimate or is it a grave injustice. If it's legitimate, then you're for it, whether it's slavery or abortion. And if it's illegitimate, then you are against it.

GLENN: Just love it. And I have to tell you, America, this guy is a tenured professor. Whenever you start to lose hope about, "Oh, jeez, what are they indoctrinate..." this is a tenured professor at one of the finest institutions in the country, Princeton University. He is a tenured professor along with a guy who is on the opposite end of the spectrum on this, Dr. Peter Singer who is also a tenured professor, a guy I couldn't disagree with more. This is a university doing it the right way, where they will bring these two guys together and they will have a debate and let the students decide. Professor George, you give me hope. You really do.

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Well, thank you very much, Glenn. That's very kind of you to say. And it is true that our students here at Princeton University are exposed to the range of points of view, even on this. If you have another minute I'll tell you a point on which Professor Singer and I agree. Do you have a moment?

GLENN: You know what? Let me take a break and then we'll come back. You agree with Professor Singer?

PROFESSOR GEORGE: Let me tell you a point on which we agree and then we'll discuss it.

GLENN: I've got to tell you, if you don't know who Peter Singer is, he says you can abort your kid up to two years. You know, if we're going to go for it, let's go up to 20, maybe 23 -- okay, it's time for you to leave the house one way or another, kid.

First Entry, Sept. '08

We aren't great at the blogging idea, but we keep getting family members begging us to post something. So here we go. Just as an organizational feature, we will probably update once a month. Hey, that's pretty good for us. So here's September:

We moved to Columbus, Ohio in July, and we have been living it up. It's a great city with a lot to do. We've been to Irish, Greek, Hick, and Shakespearean festivals so far, and they've all been very interesting. Brock's parents came to visit for Brock's white coat ceremony, and so did my (Nicole's) grandparents. Ty also made a stop on his way home from North Carolina, and it's been fun hosting everyone (that means you are all welcome to come see us anytime).

Brock started medical school at Ohio State. He studies a lot and did well on his first exam, so it looks like he might be a doctor some day, after all. He loves what he's learning and comes home palpating me all over the arms and back (he's studying the torso this month). I definitely don't mind.

I (Nicole) am teaching piano lessons, and I currently have 20 students. It works well for our upcoming expectations (I'll get to that in a minute), so I'm happy.

We are expecting our little girl mid-November, so we'll post those pictures when they come. We're both excited and a little nervous for this huge life change, but we're doing our best to get ready.