Russert asks Hillary to explain how she can promise to create 5 million new jobs when her promise to create half a million jobs in New York State in 2000 went unfulfilled. Her answer: It would have happened if Al Gore had been president. It’s a good question, actually, since a Senator’s promise to create jobs is a ludicrous joke in any case. But in this context, it’s just like he’s taken a shovel and thrown some more dirt on her campaign coffin.
Contentions
reverse Bush-era limits on stem cell research
It’s Bush-era limits on federal funding of research using embryonic stem cells.
Why the press continues to drop the “embryonic” is a mystery to me.
“Well, if we can do something legislative then I usually prefer a legislative process because those are the people’s representatives.”
Translation: Let the liberal suckers in Congress take the heat. I intend to be here for at least four years without making any hard decisions.
The ban on stem cell research will be lifted. Without a doubt, this legislative action (whether initiated by congress or Obama) will be completed during Obama Term I. There may be strategic reasons for delay such as waiting until the 2010 elections pass – I don’t know – but this will be done. This issue is important to faith-based conservatives for obvious reasons, but I wouldn’t really classify stem cell research as “liberal”. Many republicans (the non-religious, fiscal, miltary-foreign policy types) also support stem cell research. The reason why is simple. Stem cell research holds promise for to combat and cure many of the illnesses that plague humanity. People will inherently choose options that hold promise to provide a longer life-span. Warning to the GOP. This is a losing issue. Don’t mess with someone’s mortality. The people will vote against you. I’ve seen this happen in the past few election cycles with many voters that would typically be in the GOP column. This stem cell research issue is very huge.
The ban on stem cell research will be lifted.
There is no ban on stem cell research.
#4: Yeah, but why shd the violent megavoid be expected to know that? After all, its issue is Very Huge.
#1,
Because honesty in this situation would make President Bush seem less a close-minded troglodyte and they–the media–cannot have that. Bush is bad and everything associated with him is bad, end of story.
One could also ask the obvious question of whether many in the media even know the specifics of the issue or simply parrot a meme because it is what they read in a New York Times editorial.
Tell us, #3, about all of the promising cures “possible” with embryonic but not adult stem cells.
As others have observed here, there is no ban on stem cell research in the US. Any privately-funded organization can perform stem cell research, on either embryonic or adult stem cells.
What Bush imposed was a limitation on the kinds of embryonic stem cell research the US federal government would fund. The federal government does fund some embryonic stem cell research: that performed on pre-existing embryos that were not created specifically for destructive research.
The reason privately-funded (e.g., corporately-funded) research doesn’t put much into working with EMBRYONIC stem cells is that those cells have proven unstable and unproductive. So far, embryonic stem cells have produced NO therapeutic applications. On the other hand, adult stem cells — which are harvested non-destructively — have yielded therapeutic applications that are already being used to treat patients. Umbilical cord blood — “cord blood” — has also shown great promise. Many researchers believe it offers all the benefits hoped for from embryonic stem cells.
The political push to get the US federal government to fund embryonic stem cell research is not based on any demonstrated potential in embryonic stem cells, or on a lack of alternative forms of research. Its purposes is, rather, to eliminate the government’s implied posture on human embryos: i.e., that performing destructive research on them is a moral issue, because they represent human life.
We should note, for completeness, that the government position under Bush is NOT that embryonic research should be prohibited (it is NOT prohibited), but that since the people ARE morally ambivalent on the issue, the government will not pay for the types of research that raise the moral question.