Obama and the Hyde Amendment  | Wed Mar. 24, 2010 5:48 PM EDT
During the White House press briefing on Wednesday, many
questions were hurled at press secretary Robert Gibbs about the
abortion executive order that President Barack Obama would be
signing that afternoon. Most of these queries concerned the
politics surrounding the order, which Obama had offered
Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), an anti-abortion
advocate, as an incentive to support the health care reform
legislation. The order doesn't change existing law, as Gibbs and
other White House aides have repeatedly noted. But it did mark
an instance when Obama would have to put his signature on an
order restating the Hyde Amendment restrictions on the federal
funding of abortion that he had previously opposed. With that in
mind, I posed a question. Here's the exchange:    CORN: He was
opposed to the Hyde Amendment.  MR. GIBBS:  Yes, I’d have to --
ANOTHER REPORTER: It was in a questionnaire, a pro-choice
questionnaire.  CORN: It was in a questionn