Much has been made recently of Sarah Palin's stance on abortion. Nuanced, multiple personality Frank Schaeffer states that Palin is a joke candidate only on the ticket as a sop to pro-lifers. End of story. There you go, Palin is the polarizing presence on the ticket.

But, and once again, the nearly complete absence of elucidation by the Fourth Estate leaves out the most extreme position among the quadrille of candidates.

Conservative pundits and politicians have made considerable hay out of pointing out the relative dearth of legislative participation by Barack Obama.

But there is one legislative vein in which there is clear history, participation, and leadership by Mr. Obama: his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

The facts are simple and incontrovertible. Jill Stanek, a nurse in an Illinois hospital observed surviving aborted babies left to die in the soiled linens room. She eventually went public with what was happening and at legislative speed there was new Federal law signed by President Bush by August 2002. Before and after that national legislation, both similar and identical legislation was presented in the Illinois legislature - 3 times on the Illinois Senate floor - and at least once Jill Stanek testified before Obama her personal knowledge of infanticide in the hospital in Illinois. On each occasion Obama opposed the legislation (at the links you can find elucidation of Obama's continued dissembling on the subject).

What is perhaps less obvious in all of this - and we must conclude that this is because an abortion procedure precedes its effect - is that the Born Alive Infant Protection Act is not about, nor does it impact the abortion procedure. It is rather about survivors of abortion procedures. It turns out that, despite best efforts of some abortion procedures, a wriggling, vigorous, living instance of homo sapiens results outside of the mother's womb. At this point, rape, incest, or the mother's health have nothing whatsoever to do with the matter.

Obama would like to dissemble about viability - which avoids the obvious fact that no one, not you, not me, not Mr. Obama was viable, initially outside of mother's womb. Had any of us been left after birth in the soiled linens closet, we would have died.

Many who look at this subject point out that neither Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, nor NARAL opposed the Federal act - and that his opposition puts Barack Obama to the left of the most ardent of pro-choice proponents.

But it doesn't really put him to the left - there's no more space in that direction: his continued, strident opposition to those rare human beings that survive things like eighteen hour burns in saline solution is unabashedly craven and evil - yes evil.

There may be many things that we do not know about Mr. Obama - but what we do know - and why this subject is Germaine as to public policy - is that a candidate who professes to care about the downtrodden, who wants to see all Americans with health insurance is absolutely certain that the most vulnerable human beings among us should die.

Sometimes pictures and music say it better than words. Warning: Graphic image.

UPDATE: Here's another video with some more detail with an ending that provides a sense of what Obama's Illinois state leadership meant... (H/T Wake up America)