Cantor Has a Point

Anyone who saw the 2008 Presidential campaign, knew Barack Obama would eventually reverse the Bush Administration's 'controversial policy' on Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR).  I was one of those who thought he would have signed the executive order within the first 10 days of his Administration.

We're now around Day 50.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) made headlines yesterday when he said the Administration was only doing this now 'as a distraction from the economy.'  I think it's a bit simpler than that:  Obama needs a PR win.

Obama's getting killed on the economy daily.  His team at Treasury comes off as clueless when it comes to the actual cause of this economic trouble, and no one seems to know when or if a plan on fixing the banks is even down the horizon.

So until then, we get the much-anticipated Executive Order on Stem Cell Research.  Something the White House Legal Council could have written in an hour.

A top congressional Republican on Sunday criticized President Barack Obama's expected decision to reverse the Bush administration's limits on embryonic stem-cell research, calling it a distraction from the country's economic slump.

"Why are we going and distracting ourselves from the economy? This is job No. 1. Let's focus on what needs to be done," Rep. Eric Cantor, the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, told CNN's "State of the Union."

Obama's move, scheduled for Monday morning, is part of a broader effort to separate science and politics and "restore scientific integrity in governmental decision-making," White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes said Sunday. The Bush administration's 2001 policy bars federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells beyond the cell lines that existed at the time.

As someone who has watched Democrats lie over and over in campaign rhetoric over the ethics of this issue, I say a nice, short "Thank You. "

Seriously, without this political cudgel, I hope this issue disappears because it's been a political loser for Republicans since "controversy" began.  The grand irony of it all was, until Bush's proposal, no federal dollars were ever going to stem cell research before his August 21, 2001 speech on funding.

He just limited the lines which could be worked on - with federal funding - to 22 lines.  Any scientist, or team of scientists, could still find a big-money philanthropist to fund to do as much research on embryonic stem cells as they wanted.  They could even create their own private lines of stem cells.

They just couldn't get a piece of the federal money.  Since no one in the MSM seemed to care about explain what the Bush policy was, Democrats did what Democrats do and demonized the issue and made it look like only this form of stem cell research was going to save lives.

So hey, if this kills the issue as a political cudgel (Unlikely, Governor Doyle will need to fear-monger again next year), I'm all for it.

The truth of how this research has only produced cancer tumors in mice may finally see the light of day.  But somehow, I doubt that.

After all, "Science now trumps politics."  Sure, in this Orwellian world of selected phrases, why not?