Stem Cell Nonsense

Many of Cotton's companions seem to date the media's love-fest with our dear leader to W's blathering into a bull-horn at Ground Zero, but Cotton has a longer memory of this phenomenon. Indeed, Cotton recalls a veritable groundswell of media praise following our president's annunciation of his incomprehensible and utterly arbitrary stem cell policy in August 2001. The policy, which eliminated federal funding for research on stem cells derived from embryos destroyed after August 9, 2001, was rolled out during an oval office appearance in which Bush was plainly ordered by Rove to look as somber, studious, and anguished as possible.  Cotton laughed heartily at the completely transparent effort to make the class dunce appear professorial, but Cotton was apparently alone in his mirth. Indeed, at the time, Cotton made a mental note of Paul Gigot's reaction during a News Hour appearance, in which Gigot slathered praise upon the president's moral seriousness and referred to him as "our national teacher" (Cotton shudders at the implications of that statement). Much to Cotton's surprise, Gigot's gushing reaction was not uncommon.

Three years later, it is plain that this wise policy has significantly impaired promising research in a variety of areas. Evidently, the few stem cell lines that existed as of August 9, 2001 are of limited quality, and many of these are contaminated with "mouse feeder cells" (don't ask). The creation of new stem cell lines would be a boon to research into Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease, and but our wise, compassionate, "national teacher" will permit no such development.

This brings Cotton to the present state of affairs, our effusive national mourning for the recent demise of a previous dear leader.  The Bush/Cheney campaign is presently working overtime to wring every drop of political benefit out of poor Reagan's corpse; could not two play at this game? Reagan suffered from a cruel, debilitating disease -- a disease that could be mitigated or even cured by research on new stem-cell lines.  However, our beloved leader will not allow these new lines to be developed. A Kerry 30-second commercial on this, perhaps? Cotton's vision is as follows:

On the screen: Bush prancing around in his flight-suit (ALL Kerry commercials should be centered around this image, by the way)

Music: "It's a grand old flag"

Large lettering superimposed on screen (in scrolling fashion)

American Troops killed in Iraq: 713
Funerals attended by the president for those killed: 0

(Cut to image of Lynddie England with Iraqi on leash):

Iraqis killed in U.S. custody: At least 10
Apologies issued to those families: 0

(Cut to image of Nancy Reagan behind casket)

Americans with Alzheimer's disease: 2 million
Funerals attended of those that suffered from Alzheimer's disease: 1
Federal Dollars spent on developing the most promising cures for Alzheimer's disease: 0

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM

Cotton welcomes additional suggestions in this vein . . .