Blindsiding Science
Fridays seem to be busy days around the White House press offices and the worker bees can expect to work late. That's because the administration tends to release information -- like the preznit's National Guard records -- that they don't want dominating the news cycles on days when people are paying attention to the news. Firday Night Massacre, if you will.
Back in the day, when Bush still felt motivated to act out the "compassionate" part of his "compassionate conservative," America was given the great Kabuki performance of the preznit studying and anguishing over federal funding for stem cell research. His decision, a study in political calculation was designed to feint left (allowing research on "existing" lines) while going hard to his right (knowing just how limited those "existing" lines were), thereby knocking scientists and people like, say, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's sufferers off their feet while pleasing his religious base, especially Catholics.
Well, his Solomonic fraud is now exposed. On Friday night, under cover of media darkness, "Bush dismissed two members of his handpicked Council on Bioethics -- a scientist and a moral philosopher who had been among the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cells."
Although Bush had already stacked the panel, any dissent from the party line was not to be tolerated.
In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the "threats of biotechnology."
The Bush administration continues to champion science.
Just as they continue to gag their own advisors on the subject of global warming -- which even the Pentagon considers a serious national security threat -- the Bushies will never let a little scientific reality get in the way of their political realities.
Fortunately harvard is stepping into the breach.
Back in the day, when Bush still felt motivated to act out the "compassionate" part of his "compassionate conservative," America was given the great Kabuki performance of the preznit studying and anguishing over federal funding for stem cell research. His decision, a study in political calculation was designed to feint left (allowing research on "existing" lines) while going hard to his right (knowing just how limited those "existing" lines were), thereby knocking scientists and people like, say, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's sufferers off their feet while pleasing his religious base, especially Catholics.
Well, his Solomonic fraud is now exposed. On Friday night, under cover of media darkness, "Bush dismissed two members of his handpicked Council on Bioethics -- a scientist and a moral philosopher who had been among the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cells."
Although Bush had already stacked the panel, any dissent from the party line was not to be tolerated.
In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the "threats of biotechnology."
The Bush administration continues to champion science.
Just as they continue to gag their own advisors on the subject of global warming -- which even the Pentagon considers a serious national security threat -- the Bushies will never let a little scientific reality get in the way of their political realities.
Fortunately harvard is stepping into the breach.
posted by John at 5:45 PM
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