Our Pro-Death President

In August 2001, before 9/11 changed everything, the only American lives this President deeply cared about, the only ones he spent more than five minutes thinking about, the only ones he felt honor bound to protect, were blastocysts. Like some tragic King Lear figure, he torturously furrowed his brow, consulted spiritual leaers for guidance, and came to the agonizing decision to only keep existing stem cell lines open for research, denying federal funds to any scientists who wished to start new lines through therapeutic cell cloning or any other method.

The ethical dilemma surrounding stem cell research is a ridiculous doomsday scenario stoked by our science-fiction-addled culture. We're talking about creating treatments at the cellular level. This is named human embryo cloning but it's not "Multiplicity." It's a technique whereby healthy cells could replace defective ones in the human body and ensure longer life. It could dramatically reduce diseases like Hodgkin's and Parkinson's and leukemia and a host of others. But look what our President says about it:

"I'm very concerned about cloning,'' Bush told reporters in the Oval Office. "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable.''

As if the fucking Brundle-fly is around the corner. Not only is nobody suggesting human cloning, most responsible scientists doubt that it's even biologically possible. The anti-intellectualism that presumes "mad scientists" won't be able to help themselves from making armies of genetically perfect mercenaries is straight out of comic books. It simply bears no resemblance to reality. But it strikes a chord with the millions who watched "X Files" with interest and make the ignorant logical leap that those power-driven meanies with the white lab coats are going to unleash their undead minions upon us. That's how this kind of irrational fear breeds.

And you end up with statements like this:

(Bush said) "I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life is - I'm against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it.''

And with that, especially if he actually does use the first veto of his Presidency to stop funding medical research, we can dispense with all pretense and tell it like it is: George W. Bush is avowedly pro-death.

This isn't just a frame, it's the honest-to-goodness truth. With this threatened veto, Bush shows that he doesn't want to heal you if your injuries or illnesses are debilitating. He doesn't want you to have health insurance, either; at the very least he's done nothing to stop you from losing it. The ranks of the uninsured has gone up in his tenure. With the fraying of the social safety net and more and more poor people unable to care for children, the ranks of the poverty-stricken has risen. In addition abortions have gone up during his tenure. If you're not pre-natal or on a feeding tube (wait, I forgot about Sun Hudson, if you're on a feeding tube you can afford), George Bush doesn't want anything to do with your life.

We already know that he prefers war over diplomacy, making war inevitable months before attacking (see a little thing called the Downing Street Memo). However, if you commit a crime, he'd rather kill you than have you serve time, having executed more prisoners than any governor in history.

He's history's first pro-death American President.

Ironic, isn't it?

p.s. Digby does what took me 500 words to say in the space of two images.