Obama has one thing going for him. His record on abortion is so extreme that nobody will be able to believe that it’s true of the smiling man who says he cares.

When John McCain, after what seemed like hours hemming and hawing about judges and litmus tests, finally brought up the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, Obama smiled. I couldn’t believe it. He smiled. And it was because he knew something. He knew that he could deflect this issue. He’d prepared for it. He knew his record on abortion was so rotten that people wouldn’t believe it. Here’s how it went down:

McCain: Sen. Obama, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, voted in the Judiciary Committee against a law that would provide immediate medical attention to a child born of a failed abortion. He voted against that.

And then, on the floor of the State Senate, as he did 130 times as a state senator, he voted present.

Then there was another bill before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the state of Illinois not that long ago, where he voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion, one of the late-term abortion, a really — one of the bad procedures, a terrible. And then, on the floor of the Illinois State Senate, he voted present.

I don’t know how you vote “present” on some of that. I don’t know how you align yourself with the extreme aspect of the pro- abortion movement in America. And that’s his record, and that’s a matter of his record.

And he’ll say it has something to do with Roe v. Wade, about the Illinois State Senate. It was clear-cut votes that Sen. Obama voted, I think, in direct contradiction to the feelings and views of mainstream America.

Schieffer: Response?

Obama: Yes, let me respond to this. If it sounds incredible that I would vote to withhold lifesaving treatment from an infant, that’s because it’s not true. The — here are the facts.

There was a bill that was put forward before the Illinois Senate that said you have to provide lifesaving treatment and that would have helped to undermine Roe v. Wade. The fact is that there was already a law on the books in Illinois that required providing lifesaving treatment, which is why not only myself but pro-choice Republicans and Democrats voted against it.

And the Illinois Medical Society, the organization of doctors in Illinois, voted against it. Their Hippocratic Oath would have required them to provide care, and there was already a law in the books.

With respect to partial-birth abortion, I am completely supportive of a ban on late-term abortions, partial-birth or otherwise, as long as there’s an exception for the mother’s health and life, and this did not contain that exception.

Now we might know that the “health” exception can be made to include anything including the economic health of the mother but many people don’t.

You see, Barack Obama understands that much of debates are style over substance. The informed rush to their computers to “fact-check” the candidates. Many people don’t. To them, the facts don’t truly matter. Obama smiled when McCain made his allegations. He said they weren’t true. They’ll believe it.

And Obama knows that the media will act as a willing participant in his lies leaving the truth to blogs such as this one and right wing radio shows. This man sickens me. He sickens me because of his complete abandonment of principle. He sickens me because he smiles as he does it. And he knows that will likely be enough.