“If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.”
— James A. Thomson
A decade ago, Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells. Last week, he (and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka) announced one of the great scientific breakthroughs since the discovery of DNA: an embryo-free way to produce genetically matched stem cells.
Even a scientist who cares not a whit about the morality of embryo destruction will adopt this technique because it is so simple and powerful. The embryonic stem cell debate is over.
Which allows a bit of reflection on the storm that has raged ever since the August 2001 announcement of President Bush’s stem cell policy. The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president — so vilified for a moral stance — been so thoroughly vindicated.
Why? Precisely because he took a moral stance. Precisely because, to borrow Thomson’s phrase, Bush was made “a little bit uncomfortable” by the implications of embryonic experimentation. Precisely because he therefore decided that some moral line had to be drawn.
In doing so, he invited unrelenting demagoguery by an unholy trinity of Democratic politicians, research scientists and patient advocates who insisted that anyone who would put any restriction on the destruction of human embryos could be acting only for reasons of cynical politics rooted in dogmatic religiosity — a “moral ayatollah,” as Sen. Tom Harkin so scornfully put it.
Bush got it right. Not because he necessarily drew the line in the right place. I have long argued that a better line might have been drawn — between using doomed and discarded fertility-clinic embryos created originally for reproduction (permitted) and using embryos created solely to be disassembled for their parts, as in research cloning (prohibited). But what Bush got right was to insist, in the face of enormous popular and scientific opposition, on drawing a line at all, on requiring that scientific imperative be balanced by moral considerations.
History will look at Bush’s 2001 speech and be surprised how balanced and measured it was, how much respect it gave to the other side. Read it. Here was a presidential policy pronouncement that so finely and fairly drew out the case for both sides that until the final few minutes of his speech, you had no idea where the policy would end up.
As I thought through this issue, I kept returning to two fundamental questions: First, are these frozen embryos human life, and therefore, something precious to be protected? And second, if they’re going to be destroyed anyway, shouldn’t they be used for a greater good, for research that has the potential to save and improve other lives?
I’ve asked those questions and others of scientists, scholars, bioethicists, religious leaders, doctors, researchers, members of Congress, my Cabinet, and my friends. I have read heartfelt letters from many Americans. I have given this issue a great deal of thought, prayer and considerable reflection. And I have found widespread disagreement.
On the first issue, are these embryos human life — well, one researcher told me he believes this five-day-old cluster of cells is not an embryo, not yet an individual, but a pre-embryo. He argued that it has the potential for life, but it is not a life because it cannot develop on its own.
An ethicist dismissed that as a callous attempt at rationalization. Make no mistake, he told me, that cluster of cells is the same way you and I, and all the rest of us, started our lives. One goes with a heavy heart if we use these, he said, because we are dealing with the seeds of the next generation.
And to the other crucial question, if these are going to be destroyed anyway, why not use them for good purpose — I also found different answers. Many argue these embryos are byproducts of a process that helps create life, and we should allow couples to donate them to science so they can be used for good purpose instead of wasting their potential. Others will argue there’s no such thing as excess life, and the fact that a living being is going to die does not justify experimenting on it or exploiting it as a natural resource.
At its core, this issue forces us to confront fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science. It lies at a difficult moral intersection, juxtaposing the need to protect life in all its phases with the prospect of saving and improving life in all its stages.
Bush was right. On this issue, three cheers for the president.
I wonder if John Edwards will admit that he was wrong (from Dr. Krauthammer again):
This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: “If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.”
In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.
Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?
First, the inability of the human spinal cord to regenerate is one of the great mysteries of biology. The answer is not remotely around the corner. It could take a generation to unravel. To imply, as Edwards did, that it is imminent if only you elect the right politicians is scandalous.
Second, if the cure for spinal cord injury comes, we have no idea where it will come from. There are many lines of inquiry. Stem cell research is just one of many possibilities, and a very speculative one at that. For 30 years I have heard promises of miracle cures for paralysis (including my own, suffered as a medical student). The last fad, fetal tissue transplants, was thought to be a sure thing. Nothing came of it.
As a doctor by training, I’ve known better than to believe the hype — and have tried in my own counseling of people with new spinal cord injuries to place the possibility of cure in abeyance. I advise instead to concentrate on making a life (and a very good life it can be) with the hand one is dealt. The greatest enemies of this advice have been the snake-oil salesmen promising a miracle around the corner. I never expected a candidate for vice president to be one of them.
Third, the implication that Christopher Reeve was prevented from getting out of his wheelchair by the Bush stem cell policies is a travesty.
The president met with the Dalai Lama, provoking this comment from a communist hack:
Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s Communist Party boss, confirmed Mrs. Perino’s suspicions.
“We are furious,” Mr. Qingli told reporters in China. “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.”
No, there’s just no justice or good people amongst the Chinese Communists.
Bush has done something right, made a good start. Maybe he’ll make a habit of it.
Osama’s new tape is out. Apparently if we all convert to Islam the attacks will stop. Well, golly Mr. Bin Landen, sir, why didn’t we think of that before!
My favorite bits:
the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes…
I invite you to embrace Islam…There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent.
Apparently Bin Laden is now attempting to appeal to Supply Siders – this strategy is not without merit since many Supply Siders are also very religiously conservative – I keed, I keed.
Also – what the hell do real estate mortgages and global warming have to do with Islam? I mean if we really want to get down to the basics global warming is allegedly fueled by oil usage, which comes from where? That’s right, the Islamic World. And the recent sub-prime mess? What Allah would have stepped in and given 30 pieces of silver to each borrower to stave off foreclosure? Give me a break.
He goes on to call Noam Chomsky “among one of the most capable of those from your own side,”
Not that anyone really questioned whether or not Chomsky was an America hating ignoramus – but being praised by the biggest America hating ignoramus of all time must give him more street cred no?
“It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.”
There it is folks – the Bin Laden doctrine spelled out in black and white. What strikes me right off is – it is the exact opposite of the Bush Doctrine. Spread fascism and religion in order to destroy secular democracy. As much as I fault George Bush for his screw-ups, and there have been many, he did seem to understand the fundamental struggle of our time. If only he had the ability to execute his vision with any sort of competence.
It is further striking that the Jihadi’s are parroting the exact language of the America hating left – blame everything on corporations. I’m not saying that the left wants us to slouch into Islamo-Fascism – but the similarities are too striking to dismiss.
While many commentators see the roots of the Bush administration’s understanding of the powers of the President of the United States as something that has developed out of the theory of the Unitary Executive and the writings of such legal scholars as John Yoo, I believe that people have so far failed to identify the key thinker behind George W. Bush’s interpretation of the Constitution.
I, however, have not failed. Behold: the scholar whose philosophy has formed the backbone of this administration.
George W. Bush never got anywhere close to the 200 or so demonstrators who gathered in a square here on Monday evening to protest U.S. Plans to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in the Czech Republic. But he did come face-to-face the enxt day with a different set of protestors—genuine dissidents from Sudan, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Belarus and Russia, who know something about what it really means to speak truth to power.
They were gathered for a conference on democracy and security organized by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, former Israeli Minister Natan Sharansky, and former Czech Preside Vaclav Havel. Mr. Sharansky, who spent nine years in the Soviet gulag, envisioned the conference as a way of brining together what he described as a “dissidents’ trade union”—a networked, globalized Solidary movement for the 21st century.
In a well-delivered address punctuated by frequent applause, Mr. Bush—who called himself “a dissident president”—sounded familar themes about the universality of freedom and promised U.S. support “for the forces of conscience.” Noting the story of a crippled Iraqi man who had been quoted in the press saying he would have crawled through the streets to vote in Iraq’s first free ballot, Mr. Bush asked rhetorically: “Was democracy imposed on this man?”
Mr. Bush’s speech did not lack for specifics. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan “have a great distance still to travel” on the road to democracy. In Russia, “reforms that were once promised to empower citizens have been derailed.” The Chinese government, he added, believes it can give people economic freedom without political rights: “We disagree.”
Less publicized—because the media were excluded—was a closed-door meeting between the President and the dissidents after the speech, including Russia’s Garry Kasparov and Egypt’s Saad Eddin Ibrahim. “The president took his time with each of us,” said one of the participants, who had spent years in an Arab jail and was moved to tears by the encounter. “He listened. He really wanted to hear what we had to say.”
Let’s pray great things come from this mustard seed.
Hubbard posted this at 1:50 PM HKT on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 as George Bush Rules!, Grace
Much has been made of Bush’s years old “Axis of Evil” statement. In light of this recent news it doesn’t sound so silly anymore does it?
Iran, North Korea seek to boost cooperation
Fri May 11, 10:50 AM ET
Iran and North Korea have agreed to step up bilateral contacts, an Iranian news agency said on Friday, signaling closer ties between two countries which were part of U.S. President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki signed the agreement with visiting North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong-il on Thursday evening, the student news agency ISNA said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government “is interested in expanding ties with North Korea in the political, economical and cultural fields,” Mottaki was quoted as saying.
“Therefore it is necessary to remove some barriers to provide and recognize new fields of cooperation,” he said, suggesting North Korea’s debt to Iran was one such barrier without giving details.
Under Thursday’ accord, the foreign ministries of the two countries would every year send delegations to each other to “exchange ideas” over different international issues.
Bush branded the two countries as well as Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” after he took office in 2001.
Since then, Iran has defied Western pressure to suspend its nuclear program, which the West fears is aimed at making atom bombs, a charge Tehran denies.
North Korea drew international condemnation when it conducted its first nuclear test in October, but agreed in February this year to shut its nuclear facilities in return for energy aid.
The Washington Times is reporting that some clued-in conservatives are fearing a tax hike. I’m not a clued in conservative, but I’m still a little afraid.
Things have gone south between the president and conservatives. I was a loyalist holdout for quite some time, but have slipped into the opposition faction over the last year as I’ve seen the Iraq war effort become pussilanimous in the face of mounting Islamist violence. Still, I can smile when I reflect on the first term. George Bush came into office campaigning on a tax cut, and the story was “He can’t get that big of a tax cut.” So he countered by proposing a much bigger tax cut, and he ended up with a slightly bigger tax cut than he campaigned on. Then after he helped Republicans take back the Senate, he cut taxes again in 2003. The biggest domestic achievement of the first term of Bush the Younger was that the discussion was not “Can we raise taxes?,” but rather “How big will the tax cut be?” In a word, Glorious.
Shameful spending and a flagging war effort have since dulled the sheen of this administration. But there’s no conservative who doesn’t wax nostalgic about those glory days of tax cutting. I hope the next two years do not involve a tax hike of any sort; I’d like to have a few positive memories of this administration.
You know, education—if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq
The reaction has rightly been furious. From John McCain:
Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country’s call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night. Without them, we wouldn’t live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.
I was dismayed to hear your recent comments about our military men and women in Iraq, suggesting that they are stuck there because they’re uneducated, perhaps because they didn’t work hard at their studies. I write to demand an immediate apology from you in light of those comments.
On October 30, 2006 at an appearance in California on behalf of Phil Angelides’ Governor Campaign, your comments were truly despicable and offensive. It’s a slap in the face of all of our intelligent, dedicated, brave men and women in the military. Of course, there are many of these from Louisiana, whom I have the honor to represent. I take particular offense on behalf of them.
I interact with our fine military regularly, particularly those from Louisiana. I’m always struck by their courage, dedication, AND intelligence. It’s an objective fact that our military today is better educated and trained than ever before. In light of this obvious reality, your comments suggest that either you don’t interact with today’s military in any significant way or, even more troubling; you have a basic and deep-seated contempt for them.
They aren’t stupid, uneducated, or lazy. They’re heroes. And they deserve your immediate apology.
Statement of John Kerry Responding to Republican Distortions, Pathetic Tony Snow Diversions and Distractions
Washington – Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting Kerry’s comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record:
“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.
I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.
The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.
Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”
My suggestion for the next Republican campaign ad? Put a clip of John Kerry’s recent comment, have McCain respond, then show John Kerry’s response to McCain.
Hugo Chavez’s speech seems to be having unexpected consequences. The Anchoress speculates:
Hmmmmm….sounds awfully familiar, that tripe. Bush is “an alcoholic?” That sounds like Martin Sheen (a “good Catholic” with enough 12-step exposure to know better than to take another man’s inventory) calling President Bush “a white knuckle drunk”
Bush is a “sick man with a lot of hangups?” That sounds like almost anyone at Air America, or on any lefty blog who pretends to sophistication by suggesting – like real bigots – that President Bush is an “uptight Christian,” simply because his moral values are not theirs.
Bush “walks like John Wayne?” Crap, the press has been caricaturing President Bush as a “cowboy” since before he was elected.
All Chavez is doing is repeating exactly the idiotic crap that the left has been spewing for 6 years. And the Democrats have who have encouraged the hate.
But maybe some on the left finally understand that while they’ve been having fun and laughing while calling President Bush every manner of ugly name and insult, dangerous people have been watching. And they have made a calculation: We can disrespect Bush and America will laugh with us. Bush is weak. America is once again the appeasing “weak horse” it was throughout the 1990’s and even before…when we could attack anything and be accountable to no one.
I’m sure Hugo, once he left the guffawing chamber of hyenas at the UN, was shocked to discover that most Americans were not laughing, that even some Democrats were not.
Chavez should realize that he’s blundered when even Castro suck-up Charles Rangel criticizes him:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his Bush-bashing to Harlem yesterday and earned a stiff rebuke from the New York district’s congressman, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, who is no fan of President Bush.
“You don’t come into my country, you don’t come into my congressional district and criticize my president,” Mr. Rangel, a Democrat, told stunned reporters on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Rangel, who is one of Mr. Bush’s harshest critics, said no foreign official should assume that “Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state.”
He didn’t genuflect before Bush like Pelosi, Rangel et al.
He told it like it was!
Chavez referred to reading Chomsky’s Hegemony essay.
There was nothing wrong with Chavez’s speech. Most of the world feels that way.
But here was Hugo Chavez Wednesday to the General Assembly:
The “pretensions” of “the American empire” threaten “the survival” of mankind. The world must “halt this threat.” The American president talks “as if he owned the world” and leads a “world dictatorship” that must not be allowed to “be consolidated.” Bush will spend “the rest of [his] days as a nightmare.” The U.S. government is “imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal,” a “hypocritical” empire that only pretends to mourn the deaths of innocents. But not only the Mideast will rise. “People of the South,” “oppressed” by America, must “strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle.”
That’s not vague. It’s a call to arms.
The administration quickly moved to dismiss it: More bilge from the buffoon, more opera bouffe. We won’t comment or dignify.
The right doesn’t want to take him seriously (we don’t need more problems), and the left doesn’t want to see him clearly (we gave birth to that?). But Chavez’s speech achieved a great deal, and it is foolish to pretend otherwise.
He raised his own standing. He got the world to look at him. He emerged in the speech as heir to the dying Fidel Castro, who he was careful to note is still alive and kicking. Chavez doesn’t want to be the current Fidel, the old man in soft fatigues, but the Fidel of 1960, who when he went to the U.N. pointedly camped in a hotel in Harlem, and electrified the masses. Chavez even followed his speech with the announcement he was giving heating oil to the needy of the Bronx. You know what they said in the Bronx? Thanks! It went over big on local TV.
He broke through the clutter. Everyone this weekend will be discussing what he said–exactly what he said, and how he said it.
He shook things up. His speech was, essentially if implicitly, a call to resistance, by any means, to the government of the United States.
He broadened his claimed base. Chavez made the argument that it is not America versus Saddam or America versus terrorists but the American Empire versus all the yearning people of the world. He claimed as his constituency everyone unhappy with the unipolar world.
Ironically, Chavez’s blistering speech may prove beneficial to President Bush. Chavez probably thought that giving such a speech would hurt Bush in the polls, boosting his natural allies, the Democrats, and perhaps getting a more favorable administration in 2008. But he forgot that nobody likes it when a foreign leader criticizes their own leader. This is a key reason why Kissinger-style realpolitik doesn’t attempt to meddle with a country’s internal politics—it nearly always produces a backlash.
H.L. Mencken once observed: “God protects the blind, the drunk, and the United States of America.” Somehow, despite all of Bush’s and Republicans’ missteps in the past three years, I think they’re going to be all right. Having the right enemies can make life easier for you, and there’s no better enemy Bush can have right now than the blundering Hugo Chavez.
We here at Snarky Bastards have our issues with the president. Nevertheless, we never wished death on the man. The blogosphere has been buzzing about the film that portrays Bush’s assassination. DJ Drummond runs down what might happen if, God forbid, there was an assassination (H/T). Drummond concludes with some shrewd observations and good advice for liberals:
Franklin Roosevelt was criticized by many people while in office, sometimes harshly, but after his death he became untouchable. When Kennedy was assassinated, he instantly was transformed from a bungling, indecisive leader who seemed to change his mind on major policy every month or so, to a great leader cut down in his prime. Even so long after leaving office, when Reagan dies [sic] his enemies found they were compelled to praise him and testify to his accomplishments. Whatever the public opinion of George W. Bush right now, if he were to be assassinated he would undergo a similar transformation. The nation would find itself obliged to follow his ideals more closely, at least on the surface, but even that would cut the Democrats off at the knees for years to come. Anytime a Democrat started to attack a Conservative position, all a Republican would need to do would be to point to a Bush position like his own, and the polls would swing. Cynical? Sure. But look at Lincoln, McKinley, and every politician killed in office. Even Huey Long got to look like a hero by dying so visibly for a cause. If Bush were assassinated, in the end it would hurt the Liberal cause more than anyone else.
So, if Liberals want to be smart, they ought to denounce that film for the schlock it is, and support Bush the man, even though they cannot support his cause. They need him more than they know.
The last week has provided us with enough information to, I believe, declare George Bush’s first two Supreme Court nominees smashing successes. Last Thursday brought us Hudson v. Michigan, decided 5-4 (and written by Scalia), with the conservatives rolling back some excessive application of the exclusionary rule. This week brings us Ramanos v. United States, where Roberts and Alito joined Thomas, Scalia, and (in judgement) Kennedy in curtailing some Corps of Engineer overreach in applying the Clearn Water Act. Alito and Roberts both joined Scalia’s four-justice opinion in wanting a wider roll back of regulatory power, but Kennedy, of course, went squish on the matter, so, as Charles Lane writes in the Post, “the likely outcome is more litigation in lower courts, with property owners, U.S. agencies and federal judges trying to figure out how to satisfy the standards sketched in Kennedy’s solo opinion.” Well, at least we didn’t have O’Connor joining him!
The other interesting case from today is 6-3 decision (the conservatives were joined by Ginsburg) in Samson v. California upholding a California law that allows police to search parolees . The 6-3 vote should serve as a reminder to conservatives about how important the last election was. If, instead of Roberts and Alito, President Kerry had appointed Steve Breyer Jr. and Steve Breyer III, Samson is instead a 5-4 decision overturning the law.
Finally, today came news that the Court has granted certiorari to a partial-birth abortion case. I read about this at the end of the day at work, and as soon as I got in my car I heard the head of NARAL on the radio saying this was the end of Roe. If only. Kennedy would go squish on that as well, but there are now probably enough votes to overturn Stenberg.
I haven’t had time to read any of these cases, and my opinion on legal specifics is worthless, so I won’t say anything more detailed on any of these cases for now. But there’s something very important here: The next time you’re griping about Bush, or I’m going on about senators, we need to remember this. He promised to give us justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas, and he did. And Arlen-Frickin-Specter confirmed them. Without those two appointments, conservatives would be back in the judicial wilderness like in worst days of the Warren court. Now, we’ve got a functioning majority and are one vote away from being able to do some real repair work on the Constitution.
President Bush made an excellent decision yesterday: he hired Tony Snow as his new press secretaty.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Fox News’ Tony Snow is set to move from the anchor chair to the hot seat, agreeing to take on the role of White House press secretary amid slumping poll ratings for President Bush.
The appointment of Snow, who has formally accepted the job, will be announced Wednesday morning, according to three Republican sources familiar with Snow’s discussions with the White House…
The three Republican sources told CNN that before agreeing to take on the post, Snow had sought and received assurances from Bolten and other senior White House officials that he would be an active participant in major policy debates and would have a significant say in hiring in the press and communications operations.
For someone like me who’s been driven mad lately by this Administration’s abject disinterest in explanaining its policy, its cliquishness and assent-obsession I’m really, really encouraged by this; Snow will be able to communicate whitehouse policy effectively, and — fingers crossed — might even be able to influence it for the better. If you thought Andrew Sullivan, The One True Conservative™, would have something postive to say about this, you’d be wrong.