Republicans seem to be reduced to monosyllables: all beginning with "n" and ending with "o." As in NO.
Obama plans to announce his overturning of Bush's ban on funding for new stem cell research -- and along with that a more sweeping change in how the government uses science and who is advising officials throughout federal agencies. The National Institutes of Health will have new safeguards to prevent the intrusion of the political process into the scientific community.
I know from previous revelations that, during the Bush years, you could not get a grant approved for AIDS research if you used the word in any prominent way in the proposal. Researchers had to resort to euphemisms or obfuscations of what they were actually working on.
That's how low we had sunk in the anti-intellectual, anti-scientific forces that had a strangle hold on our government.
So what are the Republicans saying about this?
Eric Cantor, #2 House Republican, said Obama should be focusing on the economy and not on the long-standing debate over stem-cell research. And he trotted out the old bogus arguments about "embryo harvesting" and "human cloning" that Republicans want to discuss but insist now is not the time.
News for Mr. Cantor: there isn't going to be a time-consuming debate in Congress. President Obama is issuing an executive order, not proposing a bill. It won't take very long to do or to announce. And his scientific advisers are quite ready to carry it out. If Republicans want to take up time that should be devoted to the economy by introducing some sort of futile attempt to stop him -- then the fault is theirs.
Bush had the power to impose anti-scientific policies; Obama has the same power to undo them. Remember, Mr. Cantor, he won the election and has a mandate from the people to do just exactly what he's doing. End of story.
Ralph
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President Obama said this when announcing his overturning the Bush policies on science:
ReplyDelete"Promoting science isn't just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. "It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient -- especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."
"Eric Cantor, #2 House Republican, said Obama should be focusing on the economy and not on the long-standing debate over stem-cell research."
ReplyDeleteActually, if Bush had focused a little attention on the economy and not so much on the long-standing debate over stem-cell research, maybe Obama wouldn't have to be thinking about either one.