PoLiTiCaLlY CoRrEcT

General comments about the world today

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

An Edwards/Kerry Outrage

An Edwards Outrage

By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, October 15, 2004; Page A23

After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan -- nay, a promise -- to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry.

This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.

Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?

First, the inability of the human spinal cord to regenerate is one of the great mysteries of biology. The answer is not remotely around the corner. It could take a generation to unravel. To imply, as Edwards did, that it is imminent if only you elect the right politicians is scandalous.

Second, if the cure for spinal cord injury comes, we have no idea where it will come from. There are many lines of inquiry. Stem cell research is just one of many possibilities, and a very speculative one at that. For 30 years I have heard promises of miracle cures for paralysis (including my own, suffered as a medical student). The last fad, fetal tissue transplants, was thought to be a sure thing. Nothing came of it.

As a doctor by training, I've known better than to believe the hype -- and have tried in my own counseling of people with new spinal cord injuries to place the possibility of cure in abeyance. I advise instead to concentrate on making a life (and a very good life it can be) with the hand one is dealt. The greatest enemies of this advice have been the snake-oil salesmen promising a miracle around the corner. I never expected a candidate for vice president to be one of them.

Third, the implication that Christopher Reeve was prevented from getting out of his wheelchair by the Bush stem cell policies is a travesty.

George Bush is the first president to approve federal funding for stem cell research. There are 22 lines of stem cells now available, up from one just two years ago. As Leon Kass, head of the President's Council on Bioethics, has written, there are 3,500 shipments of stem cells waiting for anybody who wants them.

Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on stem cell research. This is false. There is no ban. You want to study stem cells? You get them from the companies that have the cells and apply to the National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.

In his Aug. 7 radio address to the nation, Kerry referred not once but four times to the "ban" on stem cell research instituted by Bush. At the time, Reeve was alive, so not available for posthumous exploitation. But Ronald Reagan was available, having recently died of Alzheimer's.

So what does Kerry do? He begins his radio address with the disgraceful claim that the stem cell "ban" is standing in the way of an Alzheimer's cure.

This is an outright lie. The President's Council on Bioethics, on which I sit, had one of the world's foremost experts on Alzheimer's, Dennis Selkoe from Harvard, give us a lecture on the newest and most promising approaches to solving the Alzheimer's mystery. Selkoe reported remarkable progress in using biochemicals to clear the "plaque" deposits in the brain that lead to Alzheimer's. He ended his presentation without the phrase "stem cells" having passed his lips.

So much for the miracle cure. Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at NIH, has admitted publicly that stem cells as an Alzheimer's cure are a fiction, but that "people need a fairy tale." Kerry and Edwards certainly do. They are shamelessly exploiting this fairy tale, having no doubt been told by their pollsters that stem cells play well politically for them.

Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot. It is part of the game. It is one thing to promise ethanol subsidies here, dairy price controls there. But to exploit the desperate hopes of desperate people with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the pale.

There is no apologizing for Edwards's remark. It is too revealing. There is absolutely nothing the man will not say to get elected.

posted by chris # 5:16 AM 0 Comments

Saturday, October 09, 2004

The press has done it again!!!!!

Most of you know what a big deal the mainstream media made of the Bush hometown newspaper endorsement of Kerry. The Iconoclast of Crawford, Texas has a weekly subscription of about 400.

The following editorial is from the FRONT PAGE of the Sunday, Oct. 3 Lowell (Mass.) Sun, which is John Kerry’s hometown newspaper with a daily circulation of more than 220,000. This is a scathing editorial that points out that hometown boy John Kerry is the Wrong Man in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time. This newspaper has been following John Kerry closely for his entire undistinguished career in politics, and is in a great position to judge his ability.

This paper can be found at http://www.lowellsun.com/Stories/0,1413,105%7E4746%7E244

Lowell Sun

Endorsement: George W. Bush for president

Sunday, October 03, 2004

It's about national security.

That's the key issue on the minds of Americans planning to vote in the Nov. 2 presidential election.

They must decide whether Republican President George W. Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry, a Democrat, can provide the leadership to safeguard America from foreign terrorism.

Americans aren't fools. They know that without safe cities and towns, America will lose its greatness. Our cherished freedoms and sacred liberties will be diminished, along with our opportunities for economic prosperity and our basic pursuit of happiness.

Our children and their children will live vastly different lives if we fail to guarantee a future free of turmoil.

Islamic extremists, both here and abroad, have one purpose: To destroy America and halt the spread of democracy and religious tolerance around the globe.

They'd like to be plotting in our streets right now. They'd like to be sowing murder and mayhem with suicide bombers and hostage-takings, and spreading fear in the heartland and everywhere else. They'd like to be wearing us down and bringing our nation to its knees.

Since the devastating terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, one American leader has maintained an unbending resolve to protect our homeland and interest against Islamic savages and those foreign governments appeasing them.

That leader is President Bush.

While out-of-touch U.S. politicians and world leaders have attacked President Bush's tactics, they can't question his steely commitment to keep America safe.

In the ashes of ground zero, where nearly 3,000 innocent Americans perished, President Bush vowed to find the perpetrators, in domestic cells and distant lands, and bring them to justice. He said he will do all that is humanly possible and necessary to make certain that terrorists never strike again on U.S. soil.

Can anyone deny that President Bush has not delivered? America the terrorists' No. 1 target has recovered from its tragic wounds and rebounded. It remains safe to this day.

What might a lesser leader have done, faced with the daunting task of deciding America's course against withering, partisan attacks from Democrats, media propagandists, disingenuous U.N. officials and disloyal White House operatives selling their souls for profit during a time of war?

A lesser leader might have caved in. President Bush has stood his ground.

In this year's election, the question isn't whether we are safer now than we were four years ago. We already know the answer. Sure we are and that's because of President Bush. The critical question is: Four years from now, will America be safer than it is today?

In our book, Americans have to place their trust in President Bush. He's proven to be as sturdy as a mighty oak when it comes to saying what he means, meaning what he says and acting decisively.

When it comes to the war on terror, President Bush means to keep our military strong and our country secure.

John Kerry, on the other hand, has all the attributes of the shape of water when it comes to telling us what he believes and what he'd do for America. Like incoming and outgoing tides, Kerry is content to go with the flow. In a dangerous world infested with sharks, Kerry would be chum at America's expense.

We in Massachusetts know John Kerry. He got his first taste of politics 32 years ago in the cities and towns of Greater Lowell.

In his 20 years in the U.S. Senate, Kerry, a Navy war hero, hasn't risen above the rank of seaman for his uninspiring legislative record. He's been inconsistent on major issues. First he's for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then he opposes it. First he's for the war in Iraq, then he's against it. First he's for a strong U.S. defense, then he votes against military weapons programs. First he's for the U.S. Patriot Act, then he opposes it.

Kerry's solution to stop terrorism? He'd go to the U.N. and build a consensus. How naive. France's Jacques Chirac, Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other Iraq oil-for-food scam artists don't want America to succeed. They want us brought down to their level. And more and more, Kerry sounds just like them. In a recent campaign speech, Kerry said America was in the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

No doubt John Kerry sincerely wants to serve his country, but we believe he's the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Americans should think back three years ago to the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center. There among the mist lay the images and memories of fallen firefighters, police, a Catholic chaplain and ordinary working citizens moms, dads, sons, daughters.

President Bush, through heartfelt tears, told us never to forget the twisted carnage and the massacre of the innocents. Yet some of us are forgetting.

President Bush told us the attacks must never happen again. Yet some of us are wavering because of the brave sacrifice of soldiers that our nation's security demands.

Well, President Bush hasn't forgotten. Nor has he lost the courage and conviction to do what is right for America.

We know if there is one thing the enemy fears above all else, it is that George Bush's iron will is stronger than his iron won't.

The Sun proudly endorses the

re-election of President George W. Bush.

posted by chris # 6:24 AM 0 Comments