A week ago, two teams of scientists announced they had successfully produced the equivalent of human embryonic stem cells by “reprogramming” skin cells, without the need to use embryos. It was a much hoped-for and anticipated development, and very welcome news. And the transformation of the stem cell debate in just the few days since has been nothing short of amazing.
Witness this article in yesterday’s New York Times. Nothing like it could have been written before last Tuesday—and not just because of the way it begins to speak of the stem cell debate in the past tense, but because of the honesty with which it speaks of the realities and limits of stem cell research: “Scientists still face the challenge of taking that abundant raw material and turning it into useful medical treatments, like replacement tissue for damaged hearts and brains,” the Times notes, “and that challenge will be roughly as daunting for the new cells as it has been for the embryonic stem cells.
That daunting challenge, and the likelihood that, quite apart from one federal funding policy or another, treatments using such cells will likely not be possible for many years (if ever), were never much on the lips of Times reporters and editorialists in the past.
The article even notes that until last week’s announcement, there was only one way to create genetically matched pluripotent stem cells:
Some scientists have been trying to make disease-specific embryonic cells by creating a cloned embryo of a person with the disease. But that effort requires women to undergo sometimes risky treatments to donate their eggs.
In the past, when the paper has mentioned this technique, they did not admit so frankly that human cloning was involved or that women were at risk. Just this past June, speaking of exactly the same method, the Times noted that researchers:
want to develop embryonic stem cells by nuclear transfer, the replacement of an egg nucleus with one from an adult cell. A major benefit of nuclear transfer would be to walk a patient’s cell back to an embryonic state so disease processes could be better understood.
They dared not call it cloning, or mention any drawbacks. Only now that science may have provided a way around the ethical (and therefore political) dilemma, and that, as the godfather of embryonic stem cell research James Thomson told the Times last weekend “a decade from now, [the stem cell wars] will be just a funny historical footnote,” can they speak openly about what they had so long been advocating.
It is to Thomson’s credit (and to that of all the many other stem cell researchers quoted in the press this past week) that he’s willing to speak frankly about how momentous this advance may really be. He’s willing, too, to see the consequences for the political fight over stem cells—and they are good consequences for both sides of the argument: the science can go forward without raising ethical concerns. (Unsurprisingly, some of the politicians involved in the fight seem to want the argument more than the science.)
It seems, though, that even the New York Times—which has been tenaciously partisan and frankly dishonest in its advocacy for embryo-destructive research in the past decade—now sees that the fight may be drawing to a close, and it’s time to put away the word games and speak openly about what has always been at stake. If these new cells can make the Times do that, maybe they really are a panacea.
“That’s why I’m calling on all Americans–Democrats and Republicans–to put good ideas ahead of the old ideological battles; a sense of common purpose above the same narrow partisanship; and insist that the first question each of us asks isn’t “What’s good for me?” but “What’s good for the country my children will inherit?””
Obama should tell this to Pelosi. After all, she seems devoted to a vendetta against Republicans, particularly with her latest moves to rob them of any real power in the House.
And hopefully govern better then the republicans did.
Once again, Obama is showing himself to be a political master. If the Republicans don’t sign on to his program, they’re obstuctionists; if they do and the program fails, they can’t blame him. What to do? As difficult as it may be, the Republicans should show they have the courage of their convictions and argue over the fundamentals, not the margins. What is real leadership? Taking a principled position and sticking to it. Let us not forget, Reagan was willing to take the hit for unemployment numbers that are likely to match what this recession’s will be. He had a very difficult two years, but he stood his ground and could legitimately lay claim to his program’s success. Obama is a very clever guy; a formidable opponent. I have serious doubts that the Republicans are up to the task of being a credible, loyal opposition.
John,
Any republican should be proud to assist in the obstruction of this insanity.
P.Zisserson (#3) states “Obama is showing himself to be a political master. If the Republicans don’t sign on to his program, they’re obstuctionists…”. Republicans don’t have sign on to Obama’s and the Dems’ program. Basically, for the next year they should take advantage of the fact that they are irrelevant. They ought to just state and vote their principles (to the extent that they have any) and wish the President well in his program. There is no point in trying to obstruct the President Obama’s program because they really cannot. They need to concentrate on rebuilding their credibility by attempting to get an accounting for the bailout that they already voted for and, especially, the bailouts the FED has engineered without any authorization.
Look, all Republicans can do, and that means Republicans in the country, is tar and feather their Washington leadership and wait until the Democrats in Washington completely cock-up the budget, to the extent that they start printing money like the Germans did with the Reichsmark.
They will do this. They’re Democrats, after all.
Republicans, and I say this as one, have no standing to speak on fiscal affairs after Bush’s catastrophic stewardship of the budget. He refused to raise taxes to cover the war and his prescription drug benefit. As a result, Obama has a free hand to do as he wishes, and Republicans have no ability to criticize him.
Only when a new generation of Republican leaders come along (like Palin for example, who can actually cut her state’s budget, the catcalls from the Left notwithstanding), will we be able to mount an ideological offensive against the Democrats. By then, the D’s will have buried us under a mountain of further debt.
Our only salvation is that the Chinese may come to their senses and stop lending us money. I wouldn’t if I were them.
Any kind of tax payer money to rescue these businesses, even though the feds are the ones that pushed them over the cliff in the first place, is silly and wrong. But aside from that, looking into the murky future, how will our grandchildren handle this debt? What are the different scenarios they might have to deal with 25 or 50 years ahead and what are the possible responses?
I think most economists, including Martin Feldstein, favor large deficit spending to offset the recessionary forces that we have. So the Republican options are limited.
But I think that they should try to make lemons into lemonade. The root cause of this is total political excess. Our “leaders” believe that we can have everything…now. They believe they can promise everything to their constituents and someone else can pay the bills.
They believe they can afford windmills and solar power without drilling for oil, without nuclear. They believe they are supreme and the economy will prosper no matter what they do. Decision making without consequences.
For the rich and politically connected none of this is a problem. But the rest of us will pay dearly for their excesses.
Someone once said it much better: Government is the problem. And he also said:
“But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. ”
As all the pundits/anchors and talking heads tell you what a brilliant & thrilling speech Obama gives at his inaugural, go back and read Reagan.
http://www.reaganlibrary.com/reagan/speeches/first.asp
Larry Kudlow stated that the GOP can offer alternatives, or just act as an echo. The GOP are so far acting as an echo to Obama’s proposal.
“Hopefully, the Democrats will remember the children.”
Democrats care about the children? Ha! The only time the Dems care about the children is when they are using them as battering rams against any GOP proposals.
Hmmm.
Republicans in Congress with a spine?
Not a chance. I can’t remember the last time Republicans actually -fought- the Democrats.
Politics is partisan or it wouldn’t be politics. Republicans/Conservatives may not be able to enact or deny legislation but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be as obstructive as possible. When the Dems talk about bipartisanship, they mean vote with us. It never works the other way. The first order of business for Republicans should be raking Eric Holder over the coals in confirmation hearings. The Bolshevik show trials that were the Bork and Thomas confirmation hearings should absolutely never, ever be forgotten. Those two events, so typical of utopian politics, are a stain on this country that should always remind normal people of the vicious, hypocritical, actual evil that makes up the socialist element.