VETO

Amidst the breaking global news of Armageddon in its many forms (North Korean, Iranian, Israel/Lebanon/Gaza), will President Bush exert his presidential prerogative of a VETO for the first time ever this week by squashing a bill allowing federal funding of embryonic stem cell research?

The White House says yes….

Depending on your point of view, such is either a profile in courage, bad politics, bad policy, or a sound, principled decision….. Unquestionably, however, it’s not what a majority of the American people — 61% of whom find such research "morally acceptable" according to a recent Gallup poll — would want. To say nothing of the GOP-controlled House, which passed such a bill in May 2005, or the Senate, which looks like it may do the same tomorrow.

So many developments since President Bush’s first prime-time address on the subject, back in the innocent days of August 2001… not just the terrorism one month and two days later, of course, but on this issue:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s complete reversal on the issue, now supporting funding the research; news that the "60" pre-existing embryonic stem cell lines the President grandfathered into his executive order is actually more like 22; a push for adult stem cell and cord cell research as an alternative; the deaths of embryonic stem cell research advocates Christopher and Dana Reeve; the revelation that the stem cell work of South Korea’s Dr Hwang Woo-suk was faked.

What will it all mean come week’s end? Likely that the bill passes the Senate, but not with a veto-proof majority, and the President vetos it and — perhaps — the Democrats finally find themselves with an issue that helps them, at least in the margins, with swing voters.

But we shall see…

More later
JT