Below are some thoughts that were in response the topics of Edwards attempt to capitalize on the death of [[wp:Christopher Reeve]] and Kerry and Edwards attempts to make some points on Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter. Check it out.

Posted by me on 10.15.2004 at 05:13:00 to an unspecified mailing list:

Heya 🙂

[ headers identifying the person I replied to removed ]

[ a comment that Edwards was simply advocating for a cause Chris Reeve held dear ]

Edwards and Kerry have been making promises and implications that have so little to do with scientific reality they might as well just promise us all a free pony and get it over with.

Do you really in your heart believe that Edwards gives a damn what Chris would have wanted? No… Like his other comments he simply saw a way to make a few points and he ran with it. All the while, I might add, adding to an incorrect impression both he and Kerry have been pushing.

The reality is that stem cell research is not banned, not blocked and essentially unimpeded by the Bush administration. See, prior to August 9, 2001 (when Bush’s stem cell policy went into effect) there was NO federal direct funding of stem cell research. None. After August 9, 2001 the Presidents policy allows for federal funding of stem cell research but if they are using embryonic stem cells it must be from a group of lines that had already been established.

That’s it. That’s the whole deal. The presidents policy did not ban or remove funding from any stem cell research… it ADDED the ability for some researchers to seek funding.

You want to research fetal cells? Great. Do it on your own dime. That is entirely appropriate… there is no reason for the government to use tax dollars to fund something a lot of Americans find objectionable – the deliberate creation and destruction of an embryo to harvest it’s cell line and / or the harvesting of cell lines from aborted fetuses.

Again, you can do it on your own money, just don’t use tax payer money to do it because a lot of the tax payers think it sucks. Hmmm… smells like Democracy In Action(tm).

Oh… and it turns out a lot of great stem cells can be taken from adult humans – like most of the ones that cure cancer.

[ a comment that using Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation is OK because int he VP debate Dick Cheney thanks Edwards for his comments about her ]

Actually what it was was a stupid political trick handled with style and grace.

[ excusing Kerry’s comments, explaining that he was simply trying to answer the question for someone he doesn’t know ]

The thing is that there was ABSOLUTELY no reason to mention her specifically to make his point. The >ONLY< reason to mention her was to somehow imply hypocrisy or something in Cheney having a lesbian daughter. Let’s try a similar analogy…. let’s pretend that the question was about divorce and that the president had answered this way:

“I believe divorce is very hard on children. Senator Kerry’s daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa, know how painful and heartbreaking the divorce of their parents were to them.” – hat tip to Brian Erst as mentioned on Instapundit.

That would have been insulting, crass and over the line. It’s EXACTLY the same thing here. Kerry and many of the democrats advising him think they are fighting battles that were over a decade ago. 10 years back Cheney might have been trying to hide his daughter and such a revelation would have had a “ohhh, ahhh” zinger factor. Not now. Now it’s just stupid.

[ but it’s OK, she’s already out! Besides he was showing his opponents (presumably Bush / Cheney) hypocrisy ]

What hypocrisy? Neither Bush nor Cheney have attempted to hurt gays in any way that I know of. Their opposition to much of the miserably bad “hate crime” legislation is reasonable, their attempt to place gay marriage up for a vote of the people is not a bad idea and their opposition to quotas and affirmative action is not motivated by specific dislike of gays.

By contrast to Kerry’s attempt to make a political attack on Bush, Bush’s answer to the same question was in my opinion reasonable and heartfelt.

“BUSH: You know, Bob, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I do know that we have a choice to make in America and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity. It’s important that we do that.

And I also know in a free society people, consenting adults can live the way they want to live.

And that’s to be honored.” – quote in context

I think it’s amusing that Kerry is so desperate for votes that he wound up invoking god more often than the republican candidate…

“KERRY: We’re all God’s children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as.” – quote in context

Soulhuntre
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