Q: In your remarks on stem cell research earlier this month, you talked about a majority consensus in determining whether or not this is the right thing to do, to federally fund embryonic stem cell research. I'm just wondering, though, how much you, personally, wrestled with the morality or ethics of federally funding this kind of research, especially given the fact that science so far has shown a lot of progress with adult stem cells, but not a lot with embryonic.
OBAMA: Okay. I think it's a legitimate question. I wrestle with these issues every day, as I mentioned to -- I think in an interview a couple of days ago. By the time an issue reaches my desk, it's a hard issue. If it was an easy issue, somebody else would have solved it and it wouldn't have reached me.
Look, I believe that it is very important for us to have strong moral guidelines, ethical guidelines when it comes to stem cell research or anything that touches on, you know, the issues of possible cloning or issues related to, you know, the human life sciences. I think those issues are all critical, and I've said so before. I wrestle with it on stem cell, I wrestle with it on issues like abortion.
...the image that came to my mind regarding the kind of "wrestling" President Obama was going through was this:
Yes, I think it's safe to say the outcomes of President Obama's wrestling matches on life issues are very much predetermined. But that wasn't even close to being the most disingenuous statement by President Obama last night. That distinction involved this response when asked about the ballooning deficits he's proposing and the mounting debt that will result:
Now, the alternative is to stand pat and to simply say we are just going to not invest in health care, we're not going to take on energy; we'll wait until the next time that gas gets to $4 a gallon; we will not improve our schools, and we'll allow China or India or other countries to lap our young people in terms of their performance; we will settle on lower growth rates; and we will continue to contract, both as an economy and our ability to provide a better life for our kids.
Yup that's it. We either spend trillions of dollars to expand the scale and scope of our government to unprecedented levels or we do nothing. It's amazing that no one calls him out for presenting these absurdly false choices.
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