There were powder keg issues such as Terri Schiavo, the nuclear option, environmental policies and yet, with some erosion, the White House and Karl Rove have been riding high. Yet, is all this about to change — perhaps swiftly?
The reason: the stem cell issue is simmering and on the verge of the boiling point. Even if you don’t factor in the recent House or Representatives vote, the stem cell issue is potentially devastating not only because it directly impacts so many Americans — but because it’s going to sharply bring into focus for many Americans how theology may be starting to trump science in government policy. Our bet is that most Americans won’t like that.
Throughout American history government opted on the side of promoting and encouraging science and research. In this controversy, the country may see a President veto a bill basically in the interest of theology, pleasing a key constituency but angering others — including many Republicans. What will THAT do to the White House’s clout?
Our personal view on this issue crystallized today when we watched THIS MUST SEE VIDEO on Crooks And Liars. It shows cancer-sufferer Senator Arlen Specter debating Kansas Senator Sam Brownback on ABC’s Sunday morning show. They are both Republicans, but there’s a difference: Specter is ill — he is now bald, his face seems to be sinking in, and his voice has become hoarse — and Brownback isn’t. Specter is generally considered a moderate Republican. Brownback is a conservative.
WATCH THIS EXCHANGE AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF. But our view is that while it sure was terrific of Brownback to offer to pray for Specter, the Kansas Senator’s compassion seemingly ended there.
If YOU had a kid or any loved one in the grasp of a brutal disease where research might find a cure in time, it wouldn’t influence Brownback’s view. Individual cases (and apparently the living) aren’t the issue. Theological priorities are what lurk behind Brownback’s political spin. Watch the video and judge for yourself.
What strikes us is now Brownback tries to change the subject away from the living, away from stem cell research’s potential to save lives. And all of this being done aside a ghostly Arlen Specter — failing before our very eyes.
But there’s MORE. Brownback has also threatened to (a)find a way to keep the stem cell bill from coming to a vote and (b) filibuster it. Don’t believe us? Then read The New York Post:
Sen. Sam Brownback (R- Kan.) said he’s exploring ways to keep the bill from hitting the Senate floor this week — and gave a not-so-veiled hint he may filibuster the measure.
“I’ve been taught a lot of lessons from the Democrats lately, so I’ve got some ideas on how one can get this done,” Brownback told ABC’s “This Week,” referring to the Democrats’ filibuster battle over President Bush’s judicial nominations.
Watching this solidified it for us but we did check to read more about what the other side says. And we found this commentary on the American Daily website which reads, in part:
Immoral American scientists with the help of the liberal left argue the benefits of stem cell research, much in the same way Nazi scientists justified their own abysmal human experiments. This is just another example that this nation is headed toward a moral-less society. Call it the ‘religion of man’, a rejection of nature, or just plain evil…We are entering into a type of society in which human life will be measured in dollars and cents.
We didn’t know that the VAST majority of Americans who favor stem cell research are all leftists. Was Nancy Reagan brainwashed? MORE:
Of course, human embryonic research cannot progress without human embryos. Where will the hundreds of thousands of embryos be found?…It is not difficult to imagine low-income women being paid to become impregnated, so that their embryos can be harvested. The production of human embryos will become a huge industry.
Conducting medical experiments or harvesting genetic material from those who have no choice in the matter, is truly reminiscent of activities which took place in Nazi concentration camps. The government of communist China harvests organs from political prisoners to sell on the black market. Various human-rights organizations regularly attempt to document and shed light on such abusive practices. However, such groups as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have been completely silent (and will no doubt remain so) on the subject of killing human embryos.
It could easily be argued that human embryonic research violates international law. The Nuremberg Code prohibits medical experimentation upon humans without the consent of the subject. An embryo is a living being and incapable of giving consent. While the U.S. Supreme Court seems now enamored with international law, I doubt that Ruth Bader Ginsburg will ever cite the Nuremberg Code when the high court is inundated with stem cell research cases….
RINO Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) recently announced his support for embryonic stem cell research. After all, embryos cannot vote…So who cares?
Actually, if you view the Crooks And Liars video, it’s pretty clear that Mr. Specter won’t be running for election ever again. In fact, he may not make it through this term. There’s more in that essay which should be read in full. It does outline this point of view effectively, in no uncertain terms.
But our gut feeling tells us that this could create an unwanted image for the Bush administration that will stick. George Bush started out his presidency in the early months a bit unsteadily. The 911 attacks ended all that. He rose to the occasion. He had a new, strong, command-in-chief image overnight. Even aspects of the controversial war in Iraq cemented parts of the earlier postive imagery. Imagery in American politics, if properly done, can translate into votes and clout. A Presidential vetoe on stem cell research will give him — and the GOP — a new image.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen, Distinguished Professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin, writes in the Chicago Sun-Times about the recent House vote 238-194 on a bill to remove restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research:
Majority motivation was personified by Republican Rep. Randy Cunningham of California, who broke down while describing the promise of this science to end the health nightmare of a 6-year-old child. Democratic Rep. Dave Weldon of Rhode Island spoke from his wheelchair. From the other side of the emotional divide, President Bush held a news conference surrounded by parents with young children born from preserved embryos.
Stem cell research is now the most divisive issue within the Republican Party. Before the vote, former first lady Nancy Reagan, spurred by President Reagan’s long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, worked the phones encouraging House members to cast a yes vote. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the most prominent of various Republican leaders to support stem-cell research, and his state’s multibillion-dollar initiative for such efforts has given fresh meaning to Republican emphasis on states’ rights. Partly for that reason, he is a notably popular speaker on the Republican speaking circuit.
He notes the prospect of a Presidential veto and writes:
Intensely emotional moral issues can divide and ultimately end a majority party’s hold on the electorate. The old dominant Democratic coalition of FDR, combining Southern conservatives with Northern labor and big-city organizations, was finally brought down by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. Republican majorities in Congress and victories in most presidential elections since then have been built on a strategy of courting white support in the formerly Democratic South.
Opinion polls show strong public support for lifting Bush administration restrictions on stem cell research. Conceivably, a continuing intense stem cell debate could end the Republican hold on Congress and perhaps control of the White House.
The old image of the GOP has been replaced. It certainly isn’t Senator Specter, who is a moderate Republican — and has NEVER reflected his party’s mainstream in recent years. But it isn’t Ronald Reagan. It’s a seemingly unfeeling Senator Brownback putting all kinds of spin to cover up the fact that he opposes stem cell research because it doesn’t fit into the theological agenda that he wants the country to follow.
The St. Petersburg Times:”The bill now moves to the Senate, where bipartisan support and passage also seem likely. That leaves Bush, who is threatening what would be his first presidential veto, with his own political quandary. The reality is that tens of thousands of embryos are discarded in fertilization clinics across the nation every year. How would using some of them to cure disease cross an ethical line?”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.