As a longtime fan of both George Bushes' eccentric
grasp of English, I naturally enjoyed this gem from W.: "See, in my line
of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again
for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." (Bush in
Greece, N.Y., May 24, once more explaining his Social Security plan to
a town hall meeting of perfectly average citizens -- except they had all
been pre-screened to allow only those who agree with him into the
hall.)
"Catapulting the propaganda" would explain his performance at the
press opportunity that same day at which he appeared surrounded by babies
born from frozen embryos. He used the phrase "culture of life" at least
27 dozen times (I think I exaggerate, but maybe not). "The use of
federal dollars to destroy life is something I simply do not support," he
said to the press the following day.
Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, federal dollars are being used to destroy
life at pretty good clip because Bush decided to wage an entirely
elective war against a country that presented little or no threat to us. And
according to the Downing Street memo, he damn well knew it, too.
The destruction of life in Iraq is more dramatic than taking a
blastocyst smaller than a pinpoint out of a petri dish. The 1,600 American
dead so far -- not much culture of life there. The 15,000 wounded, many of
them irreparably -- not so good there, either. Estimates of Iraqi
civilian deaths are all over the lot: a British medical journal claimed
100,000 last year, the Iraq Body Count website says between 21,000 and
25,000. The U.S./U.N. sanctions are widely believed to have killed
hundreds of thousands, most of them babies, even after the Oil for Food
Program was instituted.
The New York Times reports that the doctors in Iraq are now being
threatened by insurgents and so are fleeing what was a showcase system
under Saddam. I think we'd all have to agree, so far there's no progress on
bringing a culture of life to Iraq.
What I don't get is the disconnect in Bush's mind. One must assume he
figures in Iraq, "You gotta break eggs to make an omelette," or
something akin. He said at the photo-op with the adorable children who had
been produced from frozen embryos and adopted by other parents, "The
children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare
embryo."
Nonsense. Fertility treatments that help couples to have children
leave far too many excess embryos for all of them to be adopted. They are
simply discarded by the laboratories, thrown out. What in the world is
he talking about?
Seems to me the anti-abortion people are getting as nutty as the gun
lobby, which lets cop-killer bullets on the street, wants to allow .50
caliber rifles that can bring down airplanes, and stops efforts to
close loopholes that let dealers sell to terrorists and criminals. Plus a
bunch of other nutcase stuff that is not only harmful to society, but
opposed by the great majority of the American people. Anti-abortion
people are even going after the process of judicial bypass for girls who
cannot fulfill the parental consent restriction.
Look, 60 percent of the American people are in favor of funding stem
cell research. Do we have a First Amendment issue here? Is this the case
of a few people imposing their religious views on everybody else? I
don't know enough about stem cell research to tell you that it will
produce miracle cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases, as
some scientists claim. But it's not only worth a shot, it would be
criminal not to do it. The people who are ill are here, now, human beings in
terrible suffering.
Bush is prepared to use his first-ever veto. Didn't stop the
bankruptcy bill, didn't stop all those tax cuts for the very rich, didn't stop
that gross agriculture bill -- but this he will veto. He says we will
"cross a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing
destruction of emerging human life." And he doesn't think starting an
unnecessary war was crossing a critical ethical line?
It's the old slippery slope argument. Look, all of law is a process
of drawing lines on slippery slopes. The difference between misdemeanor
theft and felony theft is one penny. The difference between misdemeanor
and felony drug possession is one gram. For that matter, the difference
between a pig and a hog is one pound. We're always drawing
distinctions, and it is necessary to do so -- hunting rifles, OK; .50 caliber
rifles, don't be a fool.
Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who Let the Dogs In?
© 2005 Creator's Syndicate
###
