Kinsley on “Why Science Can’t Save the GOP”

Michael Kinsley has Parkinsons disease, and he’s not letting the GOP get away with undeserved triumphalism about the alleged trumping of embryonic stem cell research by somatic tissue engineering:

the position a politician takes on an issue tells you something about his or her character, values and intellect. And that understanding doesn’t disappear even if the issue itself does. Over the past six years, Bush and most Republicans in Congress have done their best to stop medical research that could cure many diseases, including one that I have. They claimed that morality and ethics required no less, yet they demonstrated by their indifference toward in vitro fertilization that they couldn’t possibly be serious about this. Now they hope that science will spring them from the trap they walked into with full knowledge. Bush Administration apologists even say the President deserves credit because he directed research away from embryonic stem cells and encouraged scientists to look for more acceptable alternatives. In fact, the new research would not have been possible without the kind involving embryonic stem cells, which Bush believes is immoral.

The stem-cell issue is going away? ‘Fraid not.

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