Did you notice that the President did not mention the word “abortion” last night in the State of the Union Address (link in previous blog entry)? Or was I napping? Or maybe recovering from my appearance on The O’Reilly Factor a half hour earlier?

When I was preparing for O’Reilly, I prepared answers to possible questions on the upcoming State of the Union speech. Certainly the President would mention proposals in Congress to forbid minors from crossing state lines to avoid parental involvement laws. But nothing.

This President says nothing off the cuff and he omits nothing off the cuff either. Perhaps he is saving his pro-life fire for the pro-life march on Washington tomorrow, where he hopes middle America won’t notice what he says. He didn’t even want to trumpet the so-called “Partial-Birth Abortion Act” that he signed in front of a dozen men last fall, surely his proudest pro-life legislative achievement. This only says to me that he is going to avoid the abortion issue until next November, or mention it only in passing. This also says to me that the Democratic candidate has to hammer away at it. The President is vulnerable on this one. He must be held to account.