George Bush Again Will Restrict Stem Cell Science

The public overwhelmingly wants greater stem cell research legalized and funded.

It's poised as Wisconsin's leading academic research and development job-generator for a generation. Lives could be improved, and saved.

Perfect, right?

Nope.

Standing in the way, again, is President George W. Bush, poised for a second time to veto a Congressional initiative to move stem US cell science forward.

It's sadly comical that Bush says he has a moral objection to expanding federally-funded stem cell research; moral considerations were nowhere in sight when Bush ordered Baghdad flattened with "shock and awe," or when he dawdled on vacation while thousands of people died in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or when he and his minions approved torture as acceptable.

Bush's obstinate closed-mindedness on stem cell research will make it even harder for Republicans to win in the 2008 elections, driving moderate GOP voters to the Democratic Party, or the sidelines.

Good.

Moderate GOP office-holders, too.

Even better.

That's a fair consequence for this administration's ruinous domestic and foreign policy blunders.

But January, 2009 is a long way off, and battling through another nearly two years of ideologically-rightist rule will be a long and unnecessarily wasteful slog.