At least he's consistent--Bush vetoes stem cell legislation

By Lee Russ

Wednesday, July 19, 2006 at 06:14 PM

President Bush today vetoed the legislation to widen research on stem cells,  a move many are reporting as a notable event simply because Bush hasn't vetoed anything before.  He may not have exercised his veto before, but his action today is anything but new.  It's perfectly consistent with his personal dislike of science, his personal desire to keep the Christian right happy, and his attempt to appear principled among the ruins of the least principled administration of my lifetime.

And, of course, he turned the veto into a piece of political theater.  He did it, according to the AP story:

...at a White House event where he was surrounded by 18 families who "adopted" frozen embryos not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children.

"Each of these children was still adopted while still an embryo and has been blessed with a chance to grow, to grow up in a loving family. These boys and girls are not spare parts," he said.

For some reason, he felt no need to surround himself with the mountains of in vitro fertilization embryos that simply destroyed every year because the "parents" have obtained the child they wanted from a different embryo.