Scientists are in agreement that Bush's policy is succeeding. Stem cell research has been drastically slowed. Yet Bush surrogates now pretend that the policy's real success is its failure to stop this research completely. Hey! You're supposed to think all those embryos being used in privately funded research are human victims, remember? It's a huge tragedy, remember? Stop bragging about it.

In a display of her husband's famous compassionate conservatism, Laura Bush scolded that "it really isn't fair to people who are watching a loved one suffer" to overplay the promise of stem cells. She said, helpfully, "We don't know that stem cell research will provide cures for anything."

As someone with a loved one (myself, as it happens) who has the disease (Parkinson's) for which stem cells hold the most promise, please allow me to say: Thank you so much, Mrs. Bush, for trying to make sure that I don't get too hopeful. While your husband and Sen. John Kerry make a major issue out of who is more optimistic, it is inspiring to have a first lady with the courage to say: Let's be pessimistic! Optimism is unfair! [Washington Post] The problem for Bush is that any give on the "life begins at conception" mantra is perceived as a step toward accepting the moral legitimacy of abortion, just as the radical pro-choice feel any restrictions on abortion is likewise a slippery slope toward back alley abortions by drunken veterinarians with rusty scalpels. A modicum of common sense would improve the postions of each extreme.

More on stem cell research and policy here, here, here, and here.