Last Train to Crawford: Bush Knows More About Stem Cells than You or I
Last Train to Crawford
Unlike the vast majority of what Dan Rather calls the "better newspapers," the Times refused to acknowledge that, no matter what side of the debate you're on, Bush spent considerable time before reaching a decision to allow only existing cell lines for federally funded exploration. The summary of this editorial: "Disappointed Americans who had hoped for a more courageous conclusion may wind up wondering if his real concern was a perpetual fear of offending the Republican Party's right-wing base."
This smear transcends mere partisanship. Obviously, Bush's chief strategist Karl Rove calculated the political fallout before his boss' Aug. 9 televised address, but there's only so much you can do when dealt a pair of threes. In fact, the most ardent pro-life advocates were not shy in their criticism of the President. Bush's first foray on this issue?which will be revisited within a year?was a victory for the genomics/scientific community, yet kept in mind the most extreme religious (mostly Catholic) voices. The Times implies that Bush tossed off this extraordinary decision in between chopping down brush at his Texas ranch, but that's a cynical and agenda-dictated view. In reality, Bush is moving his "red state" base very slowly toward the inevitable acceptance of revolutionary science (controlling the evolution of all living things), action that requires nimble thinking.
Frankly, I'd have preferred it if Bush had adopted Sen. Bill Frist's slightly broader outline, but unlike most of the pundits who've commented on stem cell research, I don't pretend to be an instant expert on the subject. (For example, does anyone recall Richard Cohen, George Will or Anna Quindlen even raising this ethical dilemma during last fall's campaign?)
As Charles Krauthammer pointed out in a brilliant Weekly Standard essay (Aug. 20 issue), the insistence of diehard activists that this research will lead to the rapid disappearance of myriad diseases borders on the hysterical. Quoting a number of Democrats who spoke out in favor of an embryonic cloning bill?which the House decisively rejected?Krauthammer wrote: "The claim that cloning, and the stem cells it might produce, is on the verge of bringing a cure to your sick father with Alzheimer's or your debilitated mother with Parkinson's is a scandal. It is a cruel deception perpetrated by cynical scientists and ignorant politicians. [Notably, Florida's Peter Deutch and California's Zoe Lofgren, two of the House's most irresponsible members.] Its purpose is clear: to exploit the desperation of the sick to garner political support for ethically problematic biotechnology."
But Sunday's Times edict, "William Jefferson Bush," despite the pejorative headline, was actually pretty interesting. People forget that after Clinton's frenzy of liberal activity in the first two years of his administration?the successful tax hike and failed healthcare boondoggle?his legislative accomplishments during the remainder of his tenure were negligible. (With the exception of welfare reform, which was forced upon him by a Republican Congress.) After Clinton's reelection in '96, the news generated by the Oval Office was mostly about financial scandals and the President's imaginative use of cigars. His foreign policy achievements, promoted by the elite media at the time as Nobel Prize-worthy, have now disintegrated, notably in Northern Ireland and the Mideast.
Unlike the earlier editorial, the Times on the second go-round decided that like Clinton, the current president is a "skilled triangulator" who is "the master of the bipartisan photo opportunity." On Aug. 13, a Wall Street Journal editorial alluded to this blatant deception: "On the politics, Mr. Bush's speech has already had a calming effect on the debate. The usual suspects?Dick Morris and some in the press corps?chalked it all up to 'triangulation' and a Bush move to the political center. But this merely reveals the shallowness of thinking in the Beltway, especially among the Clinton crowd."
You won't hear this from the spin-mad media or Democratic presidential hopefuls who're acting as if it's the summer of 2002 instead of 2001, but Bush's first seven months in office have been unusually ambitious, with a combination of wins and losses. The tax cut goes in the plus column, as do the growing acceptance of missile defense; the House votes on ANWR (helped by Big Labor, the surprise of the season) and HMO "reform"; the still-evolving overhaul of immigration policy; and the refusal to be boxed in by spineless European heads of state on the bogus Kyoto accord. Social Security partial-privatization (like, one hopes, a flat tax) is on the horizon; the speed of its success will depend on the midterm elections and economy, but there's no turning back the clock on an idea that should've been adopted 20 years ago.
On the other side of the ledger, Bush was outfoxed on education?he should've been firm on vouchers?and his nascent administration bungled penny-ante environmental issues that needn't have rallied Hollywood millionaires, NAACP-exploited citizens and the typical brigade of idealistic college students and arrested-development academics.
Bush's opposition, led by the stuck-in-time cabal of the Times, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, is furiously attempting to derail the President's agenda. Monday's lead editorial in the Times began with this distortion of reality: "Americans concerned about the direction of President Bush's foreign policy are looking to the Senate for relief... No foreign war now inflames domestic politics. But the Bush administration's haste to erect a missile shield before the technology is perfected, its shortsighted hostility to important international treaties and its scorn for the environment threaten to undermine American influence and damage relations with Russia, China and European allies."
Observant readers know this is a sham: Not only has Bush improved relations with Russia, but Europe's leaders, particularly Britain's Tony Blair, are coming to the realization that a self-assured America is the free world's most potent weapon. As for China, Bush hasn't been aggressive enough in condemning that brutal and tyrannical regime. I suppose the Times thinks the U.S. ought to hand over a dozen of its citizens to face kangaroo trials in Beijing and maybe renounce our support of Taiwan in order to curry favor.
In a speech last Thursday in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Daschle?just a day after bear-hugging the disgraced Jesse Jackson at a Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition conference?said, "Instead of asserting our leadership, we are abdicating it? Instead of shaping international agreements to serve our interests, we have removed ourselves from a position to shape them at all."
Think Daschle's running for president?
1. A Fella's Got to Make a Living. Alan Dershowitz, the repulsive Harvard professor and professional enemy of the Supreme Court, has outdone himself. Last week, as if lawyers needed any more bad publicity, the man who insists weekly on television that George W. Bush stole the 2000 election signed on to the appeal team for convicted Pan Am-103 bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi. I doubt that the shameless Dershowitz, who's also collected fees for his legal work on behalf of humanitarians such as O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, realizes that his rancid lust for headlines damages the credibility of his shilling on behalf of the Democratic Party. It goes without saying that the elite media has barely registered a peep of disapproval, but just imagine the outcry if, say, James Baker had consulted with Timothy McVeigh's lawyers?
2. An Off Day? The New York Post's Steve Dunleavy, the Guinness-for-a-pre-lunch-lift scattershot columnist, is okay in my book, even if a maudlin sentiment often obscures his blunt pieces defending the city's cops and firemen. He can get a little screwy about politics, however. Last Sunday, while making the sensible case that mayoral candidate "Mike" Bloomberg is entitled to spend however much of his fortune he desires (some $17 mil so far), no matter how much competitors like Fernando Ferrer whine, Dunleavy came to a very weird conclusion.
He wrote: "A guy like Michael Bloomberg doesn't owe anyone anything [fair enough]. Sure, I'd like to see $17 million go in the fight against AIDS [you're reaching there, Steverino], but Bloomberg is a noted philanthropist, and he gave it at the office. The tragedy is that this giant chunk of money?and money for all campaigns?is spent largely on television advertising. The networks in their news programs will thump their fists about Bloomberg spending this kind of money, while the sales department at the same network will rake in big bucks from the campaign ads. Clearly, it's time for media of all stripes to give equal time or equal space to any politician's campaign ads?just like a public service announcement."
Since when did Dunleavy turn into John McCain (or his puppy-dog disciple Marty Meehan, who one can only hope gets redistricted out of his safe Massachusetts congressional seat)? Most television stations are atrocious, but Dunleavy's suggestion that government regulations should force them to waste airtime on free ads is not only a First Amendment violation, but the kind of drivel you'd expect from wealthy hypocrites like Teddy Kennedy or Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
3. Hey, What's 25 Grand to a Bigshot Columnist? Eric Alterman, the affluent pundit who makes his living skewering other pundits, ran an MSNBC piece on Aug. 10 that was just as silly as anything Paul Krugman has written in the past year. Alterman, allegedly one of the most disliked journalists in the business, is still steaming that Ralph Nader had the temerity to run for president last year.
You'd think that a fully indoctrinated leftist like Alterman would applaud third, fourth and fifth parties in local and national elections?especially Nader's "green" platform that favors birds and seals over human beings?but the specter of another Bush in the White House tipped him over the edge. Alterman broke with many of his cocktail-party companions during the campaign and vociferously attacked Nader as an intrusive narcissist.
He's even at odds with Tim Robbins, one of those talented actors who get mixed up in politics when they'd be better off studying movie scripts. Alterman wrote: "Ralph Nader is back in the news, holding rallies announcing that he is unrepentant about his role in electing George W. Bush to be president. He's asking a million people to give him a hundred dollars each so he can do, who knows what? Get Jesse Helms re-elected in North Carolina?"
Alterman's not even up on current events: Helms is on the cusp of announcing his retirement and encouraging Elizabeth Dole to run next year for his seat. The New York Times, by the way, demonstrated its splendid model of objectivity last Sunday by publishing a photo of Helms in his motorized scooter, holding up his hands and looking like a madman.
Alterman lurches on, making the unbelievable pledge that he'll spend $25,000 of his fortune (the beneficiary wasn't mentioned; perhaps a grant to fellow misanthropes like Mark Crispin Miller, Sean Wilentz and Todd Gitlin) if Nader promises not to run again in 2004. The Michael Moore-populist continues: "Come to think of it, I'd do the same for Al Gore. Anyone who allowed that election to be close enough to let Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court steal it for a guy like George Bush should not be allowed to run for anything more important than worst beard since Mick Jagger grew one. As a patriotic American [Eric's hip to post-post-irony], I'd willing to pay at least $25,000 to see Al and Ralphie off on say, a ten-year sailboat trip around the world. (If they are worried about their nautical skills, perhaps they might want to invite William F. Buckley Jr. along. I hear he comes with his own cook.)"
I guess the grub isn't so swell on the Nation's troll-for-dollars cruises that Alterman attends, but I hear there's plenty of booze on hand. Just ask Molly Ivins or Christopher Hitchens, the Brit expatriate who delights Hardball's Chris Matthews with his witty Socialist crap, but will write for any publication, ideology be damned, that coughs up a paycheck.
4. One of New England's Few Positive Attributes (Aside from the Fading Red Sox). Howie Carr, the Boston Herald iconoclast and talk-show host, who performs the national service of exposing the Kennedy clan's cradle-to-grave belief that the law applies to everyone but them, had a funny bit about Bill Clinton in the Herald on Aug. 12. Granted, taking shots at Harlem's First Squatter isn't terribly original, but Carr's column also worked in some digs at Sen. John Kerry, the Ichabod Crane of national politics who refuses to tell his constituents the truth: that he's running for president in 2004.
Carr takes objection to Clinton vacationing in Martha's Vineyard once again, suggesting that the nouveau-riche Arkansan actually pay for his own meals this time around.
He writes: "Anyway, the difference between you and Bush is, he's just a daddy's boy, and you don't even know who your daddy was. The press gets it. They know how to play the story. Bush went to Yale, he must be stupid. You went to Yale, you must be smart."
Carr then slips into the distressing tic of columnists (Maureen Dowd, Peggy Noonan, etc.) who speak in the voice of the person they're either bashing or praising. Nonetheless, this is stand-up material: "Hot damn, it's gonna be swell on the Vineyard, as long as John Kerry don't crowd you. Who does he think he is? You're the Kennedy wannabe king of these here islands, and don't you forget it, Jawn. McCain's out there talkin' him up, about how he thinks now he could have beaten Gore and Bush last year... All [Kerry] is is that rich widow-woman's boytoy. That's why he'll stay over on Nantucket and that there other island his mama's family owns. Naushon? John Kerry, big war hero, coupon-clipper, kept man. Kerry's counting on all the draft-dodging reporters to lap him up like they did McCain, as if having those front-running bumkissers in his corner did McCain any good. Heck, Gore was in 'Nam too, even if he did have him a bodyguard, and look what it got him. A one-way ticket to Palookaville."