The White House is now admitting that embryonic stem-cell research does not involve the taking of any human life. Typical Bushworld tactic -- appease the base then shift to be more palatable to the middle. Here's Tony Snow on why the President was going to veto the lifesaving stem cell research bill:
The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He's one of them . . . .The simple answer is he thinks murder's wrong.And then in the Catholic World:
The president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something living and making it dead for the purposes of scientific research.That kind of stupid talk got Bush lots of positive coverage from the wacko right for the last week. Now that it has set in with all of them (the tiny minority opposed to lifesaving stem cell research), it's now safe for the President to talk out of the other side of his mouth. As reported today by the Washington Post:
President Bush does not consider stem cell research using human embryos to be murder, the White House said yesterday, reversing its description of his position just days after he vetoed legislation to lift federal funding restrictions on the hotly disputed area of study.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said yesterday that he "overstated the president's position" during a briefing last week but said Bush rejected the bill because "he does have objections with spending federal money on something that is morally objectionable to many Americans."
Isn't THAT special?
One might hasten to point out to Snow and Bush that NOT spending money on stem cell research is morally objectionable to about three times as many people as is spending the money.
Oh, and by the way, if that is going to be the yardstick for the nation's policy, about three times the number of people who find stem cell research morally objectionable find spending a billion dollars a week on the Iraq War equally morally offensive.
But I'm not holding my breath on that one.
One might hasten to point out to Snow and Bush that NOT spending money on stem cell research is morally objectionable to about three times as many people as is spending the money.
Oh, and by the way, if that is going to be the yardstick for the nation's policy, about three times the number of people who find stem cell research morally objectionable find spending a billion dollars a week on the Iraq War equally morally offensive.
But I'm not holding my breath on that one.
2 comments:
Gerat post. I want to play. We can say that many people are find the federal death penalty morally offensive. And the same for pro-torture policies. Finding the holes in this adminstration's reasoning is like shooting whales in a barrel.
It seems to me that, if he's reversing his position that these clumps of cells do not equal life, then there is little cover left for what he's really doing -- imposing his religious views on the nation.
Please god, give me a President who doesn't believe that an invisible man in the sky is running the show.
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