Obama Wakes Up and Realizes the Damage Done at Saddleback

It has become clear that the Saddleback Civil Forum was a major and unexpected turning point in the campaign. In a previous post it was mentioned that Obama's performance that night convinced campaign manager David Axlerod that Obama had to choose somebody like Joe Biden for VP, thus opening the door for Sarah Palin on the GOP side.

Today on ABC Obama tried to walk back some of his answers from Saddleback that did so much damage to the campaign:

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Reports: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., admitted this weekend that his response on the definition of human life at Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum was "probably" too flip.

When asked at what point a baby gains human rights, Obama said last month "that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

But in an exclusive "This Week" interview airing this morning, Obama told Stephanopoulos "what I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility...all I meant to communicate was that I don’t presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions."

Obama went on to explain, "that abortion is a moral issue, that it’s one that families struggle with all the time. And that in wrestling with those issues, I don’t think that the government criminalizing the choices that families make is the best answer for reducing abortions."

"The better answer...is to figure out, how do we make sure the young mothers, or women who have a pregnancy that’s unexpected or difficult, have the kind of support they need to make a whole range of choices, including adoption and keeping the child," he said.

Obama, who had not been getting tough questions throughout the campaign, was asked a question related to abortion, something that everybody had to know would be asked by Pastor Rick Warren, and yet he was woefully unprepared to answer it. He's now paying the price for thinking the Saddleback event would be another nice photo opp without any other campaign significance.