What Jay said. Bush was elected – that was the will of the people. Not polls.

And I don’t think you do justice to the other side here. There is a moral worry about the basic cheapening of human life, about the farming and harvesting of live human embryos. I don’t agree with htis macro position, but I can’t tell you that magic point where life really begins and if we should be treating human embryos as little more than vegetable plants.

Rather than setting up comic book good and bad people here, why not acknowledge that, like abortion, its a thorny issue without easy answers. Bush is running against the tide with this and his refusal to expand embryonic programs and spend more on embryonic research will only be temporary.

The will of the people was exercised on November 2nd, 2004. The public knew Bush’s position on this issue and therefore knew a veto would be his response to such legislation.

Presupposing he was concious at the time, of course.

If Bush has authentic moral objections to embryonic stem cell research I’m a blastocyst.

If he finds this research so reprehensible, why isn’t he taking steps to ban private funding of this research instead of just inhibiting it? Is private money immune to moral principle?

Also, where’s his push for an international treaty to restrict this research? Moral objections, my foot. This is all about looking the part and selling a story.

I agree that it is indeed a bold move for President Bush, but that doesn’t mean I have to respect him for it. It was also a political loser to setup secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and to find a legal “black-hole” in which to indefinitely detain “enemy combatants.” Both were bold moves but contradict the very nature of America.

I can respect that on a very personal level the President acted on his conscious and voted for what he personally felt was moral. The problem I have with this is that isn’t part of his job. He is supposed to represent the will of the people and just because he finds the research to be reprehensible [which is retarded because he doesn't seem to oppose tossing the unused embryos as medical waste, nor the artificial insemination process] doesn’t mean he should make a moral judgment for the nation. That is not in intended role.

Both you and Jay C are right that the government does not have to allocate the people’s tax dollars to any research on any topic period. I find it funny that just last week you were defending a much more expensive and currently unrealistic ICBM shield as mission critical to the well-being of Americans yet are so seemingly opposed to those same citizens deciding that they want some of their tax dollars spent on funding research to help prevent, cure, and decrease disease.

No one is saying that the government has to fund stem-cell research. Progressives/Liberals/Whomever are saying that the public seems to want this research to be funded and unrestricted so long as new embryos are not created just for research. It is unfortunate that President Bush’s personal objections deterred such a possibility.

You do think from time to time, so how about this…

This is an act of courage by Bush. It is up front – a political loser. The media support the bill, all Democrats and quite a few Republicans. Bush can’t run again and has no votes to gain from this even if he thought, somehow, it would be a net gain.

The only reasonable assumption is that he acted on conscious – for which (this act) he knows, he will take a public pounding.

And not only is Jay C correct above, but also the veto actually only limits federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to those cell lines that were in existence at the time the policy was initiated – in the late 90s.

I mean progressives have turned Bush into a virtual concentration camp commander standing on piles of dead bodies.

How about a calm analysis – some Perspective. This will hurt Bush regardless, so progressives can actually be honest about it.

Dugger

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced $287 million in grants on Wednesday to create an international network of 16 labs to try new approaches to making a vaccine against AIDS.”

Oh yea, but nobody can do any decent research with less than $300 million, jesus pedro you don’t know anything about science do you?

what a bunch of chuckleheads liberals are….

The solution is simple, really.

Just pass the hat among mega-rich liberals and raise research dollars privately. Could the Heinz-Kerrys do without a few hundred million? How about the Kennedys? Gates? Soros? Katzenberg? Oprah? Babs?

Or is embryonic stem cell research yet another idea that is so critical, so urgent, so important … yet not quite worthy of funding out of your own pockets?

Not to mention, snark aside, that the realities of Bush’s medievalism make it difficult even to use private money, because on a project which receives funding from several sources (which includes a lot of research especially at the University level), if any of it touches on Embryonic Stem cells, the whole thing has to be dropped or become absolutely 100% private. We already have scientists leaving the country over this because the current situation is just too restrictive and we’re falling behind the rest of the world.

That’s not why Bush Veto’d the bill. He did it for moral reasons. It wasn’t a financial decision.

LOL.

JK

Science is great as long as it allows them to exchange sappy glurge emails about angels on our shoulders, fables about born-again students outwitting atheistic college professors and urban legends about sinsiter plots to spread Darwinism and other pointy-headed “Jewy” stuff. Just don’t mess with their narrow and self-serving interpretations of ancient texts. Homosexuality? An abomination – God said so. Eating shellfish? Hey, we love lobster! Get with the times.

What strange people we have in this country.

Debating science, ethics, morality and humanity, the Senate approved a bill expanding federal fundin…

I don’t know if this VETO by Bush will have the net effect of loss of life, because right now, stem-cell holds “promise,” that has not fully been realized. I’m *very* optimistic that it will eventually save and improve people’s lives.

But it will certainly slow the pace of stem-cell research when dollars that *would* have gone to our most promising scientists, don’t.

That is NOT in question, not UP for debate, despite what our resident “GOP Giants of Thought” say in this particular blog.

Look at it this way: It’s sort of like turning a spicket to a hose that waters your garden, to a “trickle” and hoping it’s enough water to keep your plants robust and healthy.

We’ll be rid of this clown in a few years. That may be two years too many, for people with Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s, but it’s all we got.

Rid of Bush in 08′.

JK