Touting Corsi book, Limbaugh falsely claimed that Obama voted to "allow doctors and patients to murder babies"

Summary: Discussing Jerome Corsi's The Obama Nation, Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that Sen. Barack Obama "numerous times, three times in Illinois voted for legislation that would allow doctors and patients to murder babies who survived abortions and were out of the womb. Radical stuff. Three times he voted for this." Limbaugh misrepresented the legislation Obama voted against, a bill that amended the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 and that opponents said was unnecessary, as the Illinois criminal code unequivocally prohibits killing children, and posed a threat to abortion rights.

During the August 15 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, while touting Jerome Corsi's falsehood-laden book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that Sen. Barack Obama "numerous times, three times in Illinois voted for legislation that would allow doctors and patients to murder babies who survived abortions and were out of the womb. Radical stuff. Three times he voted for this." But in making his claim, Limbaugh misrepresented the legislation Obama voted against, a bill that amended the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 and, as Media Matters for America has noted, that opponents said was unnecessary, as the Illinois criminal code unequivocally prohibits killing children, and that it posed a threat to abortion rights.

Media Matters has documented that on three Sean Hannity-hosted programs, Corsi falsely claimed that Obama supports abortion "[a]fter a child's born."

From the August 15 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Oh -- this book by Jerome Corsi. You know, this is fascinating, folks. Jerome Corsi was also a co-author of one of those books that the Swift Boat Vets put out against John Kerry. So the Obama campaign has now mounted this rapid-response website, and the drive-bys -- it's -- the incestuousness here. Media Matters will do an analysis of Corsi's book, and then the drive-bys like Jake Tapper at ABC will pick it up, and they start sourcing each other. And Media Matters will -- "Well, as ABC said," and ABC -- "Well, as Media Matters said" -- political hack news organizations.

What they're doing, they're investigating the background of Jerome Corsi. And they're trying to discredit Corsi and they're telling -- there's a few lies about some of the assertions. I've read some of the book, and it's pretty damn good, and it's very interesting. And there are a lot of endnotes in here that document some of his assertions.

But what's fascinating to me is that the drive-bys are spending 10 times the amount of energy trying to get who -- the background on Corsi than they are on Obama. They have spent no time working on the background of Obama. It is other people having to come up with the fact that this guy, numerous times, three times in Illinois voted for legislation that would allow doctors and patients to murder babies who survived abortions and were out of the womb. Radical stuff. Three times he voted for this.

—E.H.H.