Hardly Irresistible.

Many of our readers know Cokie Roberts, ABC News pundit and author. Somewhat fewer probably know her husband, Steven Roberts, a journalist, author, and once upon a time a seemingly omnipresent fixture on television news programs. Together they write a syndicated newspaper column. The headline on a recent collaboration was "Nation's abortion debate finally cooling off."

They used the absence of a specific abortion-related reference in President Bush's State of the Union address to launch a column, the gist of which is, whew, glad that's over! As they put it, "The abortion issue has taken up far more time and energy than it deserves."

This is silly, of course, but as the column unfolds, the reader comes to see the agenda their column is actively at work to further.

Having read the 2004 electoral tea leaves, the pro-abortion side began trying to offer what it called a "Third Way" (the name of an actual, recently created group) that they believe will prove irresistible to most Americans who are not "purists" on the abortion issue. In truth, "Third Way"which the Robertses mysteriously describe as "a moderate democratic group"is an entity created to generate smokescreens for pro-abortion Democratic politicians, staffed by veteran pro-abortion activists from such decidedly One Way groups as Planned Parenthood and the Women's Law Project.

Pro-lifers already know abortion polling data like the back of their handknow it better than it is presented in the Robertses' column. They quote from a January CBS News poll and after parsing the numbers conclude, "more than half [of the respondents are] in the gray category."

Yes and no. If you combine categories in that poll you find that nearly half [47%] would either not allow abortion at all [5%] or permit it only to save the mother's life [12%] or only in cases or rape, incest, or to save the mother's life [30%]. But there is good reason to believe the real level of opposition is far wider. What do you do with the 16% who said abortion "should be permitted, but subject to greater restrictions than it is now"?

The Robertses' column is full of statements that are half-truths, quarter-truths, gross distortions, or flat-out falsehoods. Take this whopper. While both parties, the Robertses write, have been "whipsawed by activist pressure groups," it is Republicans who "have been particularly determined to play to their anti-abortion base."