Francis Beckwith (a big Bob Dylan fan, by the way) writes today on the invitation given to President Barack Obama to deliver a commencement address at the Catholic university of Notre Dame, and especially on the decision of Notre Dame to award President Obama an honorary doctorate of law.

Admittedly, Obama is an articulate, winsome, intelligent, and gifted leader. But, whether we like it or not, he has employed those gifts as an apologist for excluding prenatal human beings from the protections of our laws. And he has not been shy in making this plain for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

While in the Illinois legislature he opposed legislation that would have required that medical assistance be provided to children who survive abortions. While in the U. S. Senate, he voiced his strong disapproval of the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of the federal partial-birth abortion ban, a modest restriction on a particularly gruesome abortion procedure.

During his presidential campaign Senator Obama affirmed his support for the right to abortion by explaining that he did not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” if they made a mistake. He made no secret of his desire to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal tax dollars from being used to pay for abortions except those intended to save the life of the mother or for women who had become pregnant as a result of rape or incest. He also declared during his campaign that he would sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a piece of federal legislation that would eliminate restrictions on state and federal funding of abortion as well as virtually all state and federal restrictions on abortion, including the federal and state partial-birth abortion bans and parental notification and consent statutes. It would also eliminate conscience clauses that presently allow pro-life health care workers to opt out of performing or participating in abortions or referring patients to abortion providers.

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Fred Barnes (a big Bob Dylan fan, by the way) writes on “The Liberal Dream Agenda” and the imposing challenge that now faces those in congress who would oppose its enactment. The agenda, as Barnes summarizes it, includes “government-run health care, a cap-and-trade carbon tax, a vast array of personal and business tax increases, and government authority to seize financial institutions in addition to banks.” Just on health care, specifically:

President Obama is fond of saying his plan allows people to choose between the health insurance they get through their employer and a government program currently limited to federal workers. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? It’s not. Rather, it’s the path to a single-payer health care system–the kind Obama has said he prefers but isn’t actually proposing.

His program would have the distinct advantage of not having to make a profit. So it would always be able to offer greater benefits at lower cost (with taxpayers taking up the slack when it lost money). Businesses would have an incentive to increase co-pays and trim benefits and, in effect, encourage employees to switch plans. And if employer-paid benefits are taxed, as administration officials have suggested, the incentive steering workers to the government program will be irresistible.

“There won’t be any private sector [in health insurance],” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says, should government-financed insurance be available to everyone. “It’s a fast track to single payer.” There’s an additional fear. The stimulus bill set aside $1.1 billion to research and compare medical treatments and drugs, raising the prospect that government programs would pay for some treatments and medicines but not others and thus open the door to rationing.

Resisting the Obama agenda for an extreme liberal transformation of the economy is more than a challenge for Republicans: it’s a duty. It’s time for these guys — and gals — to earn their salaries. That is, if they ever deserved them. Forgive my cynicism. I am not without hope. But it’s time for change.

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Mary at BabyBlueOnline (a big Bob Dylan fan, by the way) listened to Bob Dylan’s new song Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ and had an interesting first impression, thinking of American soldiers in Baghdad.

I’m still really digging the sound of the record. I’m not sure who’s singing it, i.e. who’s saying what to whom, but I sure do like how it’s being said.

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