Obama at Notre Dame

I didn't pay much attention to Obama's visit to Notre Dame (sewing my ears and eyes shut, it turns out, was the only way to accomplish this). I knew it wasn't going to move the issue up the field. Nevertheless, a few men I respect did write on it. They offer, if you will, a negative opinion and a positive one.

The first, or negative, view came by way of Al Mohler:

In virtually every way imaginable, the Notre Dame speech represents the quintessential Obama. By now, Americans should understand that this President is going to take positions and shape policies that are at odds with the sanctity of human life. He has already done this with respect to federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research and, as a candidate he pledged to do far more -- even to sign the Freedom of Choice Act if passed by Congress.

At the same time, the President wants to claim common ground and respect for those who differ with him on these issues.

His is really a salient, concise response to the regular pro-choice blather. Read it to be educated in high rhetoric.

The other piece, a non-religious response, was issued by National Review's Yuval Levin. He was quite bullish on the speech, seeing some reason for optimism:

For all the controversy surrounding his invitation, President Obama’s commencement address at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday actually offered pro-lifers some causes for optimism. Although it was certainly not his intention, the president’s remarks point to the profound and growing weakness of the case for America’s radical abortion laws.

Obama himself, of course, is a cause for short-term pessimism: His policies have so far been true to his pre-presidential record, and there is every reason to expect they will continue to be. And that he can often clothe his substantive extremism in the garb of rhetorical moderation — that he can step back and describe the controversy with apparent distance even as he himself pulls hard for one side — further strengthens his cause in the fight.

But his speech should leave pro-lifers optimistic, because it illustrates the transformation of the abortion debate over the past 15 years. Put simply, defenders of the Roe regime seem incapable of making a case for themselves, and when they reach for the vocabulary of American liberal democracy in an effort to make some kind of argument, they end up closer to the case for their opponents.

Whole thing.