The Hill reports:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Sunday morning that he is close to striking a deal with the Obama administration on abortion provisions. “We are close to getting something done,” Stupak said in an interview with MSNBC. Stupak said he engaged in talks late into the night on Saturday night. The possible deal would focus on an executive order that would specify there would be no public funding for abortions in the healthcare bill.

In the list of deceptions and worm-like maneuvers, this one ranks up there. No, you haven’t forgotten your basic civics. An executive order cannot countermand a statute passed by Congress and signed by the president. If ObamaCare says, “We will subsidize abortion,” no executive order can effectively say, “but not really.” And if it were so, then every pro-choice member of Congress who is voting for this is deceiving the public by voting to “preserve reproductive choice.” Certainly Rep. Bart Stupak and his cohorts know this. He and his gang of seven or so are now simply looking for cover to sell out. Just as Sen. Ben Nelson voted for a measure that plainly didn’t preserve the Hyde Amendment, so too we see the Stupak Gang willing to use the skimpiest of fig leaves to hide their willingness to abandon principle.

Let’s be clear: the pro-life movement will never fall for this, and Stupak and his ilk will be the subject of his pro-life constituents’ ire. If he pushes this through, he will become the poster boy for the anti-incumbent, anti-ObamaCare campaign this November. And he will have earned that honor.