It took a lot of guts for President Obama to publicly reverse campaign promises at his 100 days press conference and tell the pro-abortion crowd that “I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they…suggest that this is simply an issue about women’s freedom and that there’s no other considerations…The Freedom of Choice Act is not [my] highest legislative priority. I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that’s where I’m going to focus.”

It takes a big man to make such a statement about moving away from FOCA. Additionally, those who mailed in their red envelopes also deserve praise for getting him to pause and consider that the issues of abortion (and micro-abortion — directly attacking human embryos) are not just a matter for scientists (materialists), a matter where the ends justify the means. The issue is a matter of the values that define us: an issue where the culture’s values matter as much as cold techniques that use freedom as an excuse for anything.

Seemingly oblivious to it, President Obama — within the very same press conference — created the foundation from which perhaps he can reverse some of his earlier bad social decisions and reverse the hypocrisy within which he still walks. Discussing waterboarding of terrorists, President Obama said: “Waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don’t think that’s just my opinion; that’s the opinion of many who’ve examined the topic. And that’s why I put an end to these practices. I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do… because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are…. You start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.” The same argument against abortion could be made by replacing the word ‘waterboarding’ with ‘abortion’ and replacing ‘torture’ with ‘murder’. Watch…

“[Abortion along with human embryonic stem cell research] violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is [murder]. I don’t think that’s just my opinion; that’s the opinion of many who’ve examined the topic. And that’s why I put an end to these practices. I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do…because we could have gotten this information [or healing] in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are…. You start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.” Yes America, there is reason for hope…. There’s no reason a U.S. President can’t say these words about abortion if he can say them about torture.

Be as suspicious as you may over President Obama’s motives for backtracking on FOCA. Was he just trying to keep poorly informed Catholics within the Democratic party with false hope? [Disclosure: I’m a registered Independent.] Has the leadership read the tea leaves and realized the party is about to be punished with mass defections? Being an optimist, I send President Obama my thanks. I prefer to believe the future is not written in stone, that humans are partners with God in determining the future. The future is determined by today’s actions, above all prayer and fasting. A second wave of red envelopes would also help to remind President Obama of the values of our country; that people are greatly upset that abortion continues to “corrode the character of our country”. The second round could remind him: “In case you mistook my silence last time.”

People of hate see nothing wrong with direct attacks upon innocent human life or direct attacks upon the importance of traditional marriage. “Many who’ve examined the topic” for thousands of years are in agreement… abortion is the taking of innocent human life and produces a culture of death that corrodes everything. Additionally, the reason so many pseudo-feminists (“pro-choicers”) think only of abortion, in Obama’s own words, “simply [as] an issue about women’s freedom and that there’s no other considerations” is because the Marxists taught them to think that way. They know human relationships only in terms of power struggles (hate). Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator, believed the Marxist/atheistic revolution could only work and take hold with the abolition of the family. He taught that the revolution had to start with the abolition of the family (cf. Schooyans) because marriage was just another form of the assertion of power. Thus, women were “forced” into pregnancy and so needed greater freedom from marriage. The U.N. continues these false ideals under the guise of feminism (cf. Schooyans) as the rest of the world suffers homosexualist attacks on true diversity (male and female) from their State supreme courts.

The problem with most Marxists (really just materialists who deny God and authentic human values) is that they can’t believe in love. Everything is about power politics. They believe only in what their eyes can see and have little value for past wisdom. Everything is about change and revolution. They treat others as only means to an end or have been used by others so much they just won’t believe in love anymore. They’re a lot like secularists. Neither can live fully human lives because neither lives in love. They are simply diminished persons — living like animals, slaves to passions. To be human is to live in love, suffering for others, living for others. Humans are made to be God’s image and likeness and God is love. We can’t say we are fully human, fully in God’s image, if we withhold love from the unborn humans who await our love. Instead we become like animals when we choose to kill the innocent or when we seduce them into bestial behavior. As Marxists and Secularists fail to realize their own humanity, they fail to realize it in others, hence abortion thrives.

It is nice to see Obama indicate that he may be moving away from ideals that were ultimately inspired by Marxists. Let’s increase our prayers for him. And let’s keep those red envelopes going.

Having made several attempts, on American Spectator Online, to make sense of this interminable, albeit exciting, election, I have been chastened by events throughout its unpredictable twists and turns. Thirty days out from the election, with the end game now commencing, I am profoundly uncertain as to its ultimate outcome.

RealClearPolitics.com puts Senator Obama up by 5.9 percent, an averaging of all polling to date. It also has him beating McCain in Virginia, on average, by 2.4 percent. From where I sit in Fairfax County, Virginia, within the orbit of Washington, D.C., Obama is likely to follow the pattern of other statewide Democratic candidates who have rolled up double-digit numbers in this part of what was once considered a safe Red State.

As a native of St. Louis, I note that the Arizona Senator is still holding onto a narrow lead in Missouri, 1.7 percent, which has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election of the post-war era except for 1956. Of course, Virginia, with its growing and diverse population, may be a better indicator than the Show Me State. But I really don’t know.

Clearly, the near meltdown of the nation’s finances in the last two weeks has been a “game changer,” to use the cliche now in vogue. And it is has not changed in favor of Senator McCain and the Republicans.

Last weekend I recall telling my daughter, who is working at a ranch outside of Cody, Wyoming, to move at least some of her deposits from Wachovia into another local bank. While I assumed that federal deposit insurance would eventually come through, I did not want her to be shut out of her cash if the dismemberment of the bank dragged on for months or even years. No one in our family has had a conversation like that since, what, the 1930s?

Although the Obama campaign is sitting pretty for now, thirty days is certainly an eternity in a national political campaign. Just recall the past thirty, sixty or ninety days. Governor Palin has only been around for five or six weeks. The stock market lost between 9 and 10 percent last week. Remember Senator Clinton’s rally late in the primary campaign? Moreover, the McCain campaign is about to “unleash hell,” to use a phrase coined by Peggy Noonan on Meet the Press yesterday. Well, politics ain’t bean bag, as Mr. Dooley reminded us.

Still, the Obama campaign is the model of calm, cool, relentless organizational perfection, registering voters, raising money and organizing volunteers on line and emulating U.S. Grant’s harassment of Lee in forcing the McCain campaign to over-extend its supply lines, divide its forces, or begin triage sooner than it would like. McCain’s recent decision to abandon the field in Michigan was quite a blow given previous high hopes among Republicans.

This general election race pits maybe the weakest of the Democratic candidates against the strongest Republican candidate. Hillary Clinton would probably be winning handily right now given the economic morass, two wars, and an unpopular Republican incumbent in the White House. John McCain’s reputation as a maverick allows him to distance himself from the Bush administration and flourish in a hostile political environment that would have been fatal to the other contenders in the GOP primary. Nevertheless, McCain’s relative strengths are presently overshadowed by the present economic crisis.

The countervailing factors threatening Obama’s recent rise in the polls are the character issue which the McCain campaign is already raising and the dark undertow of any potential “Bradley Effect” in which race may still impact the final vote in November.

Finally, the Catholic vote, often referred to as the “jump ball” of American presidential politics, will be crucial to victory, especially in the Midwest. On social and cultural issues, McCain has a clear advantage with this block of voters. On the economy, Obama has the advantage. The issues of war and peace cut both ways.

This is still an election too close to call.