March 2009 @ 3:32 pm

So much for “restoring scientific integrity.” As a supporter of embryonic stem-cell research who was invited to the signing ceremony, Charles Krauthammer really takes it to Pres. Obama.

Restoring? The implication, of course, is that while Obama is guided solely by science, Bush was driven by dogma, ideology and politics.

What an outrage. Bush’s nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.

Obama’s address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the “false choice between sound science and moral values” . . .

Yet, unlike Bush, who painstakingly explained the balance of ethical and scientific goods he was trying to achieve, Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and others not.

This is not just intellectual laziness. It is the moral arrogance of a man who continuously dismisses his critics as ideological while he is guided exclusively by pragmatism (in economics, social policy, foreign policy) and science in medical ethics.

Sorry to quote so much, the whole column is a must read. Especially with so much pervasive and uncorrected ignorance on the issue. And confusing too, if this report is true that Wednesday’s omnibus budget essentially reversed Monday’s executive order and restored the government policy back to the status quo.