Sen. Frist, M.D. Forces W's Hand

Senate leader Bill Frist
Originally uploaded by wonderbread74.

Did Crisis Of Conscience Overcome Senate Leader?

He may have frittered away any possibility of winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, after breaking away from President Bush's policy limiting federal funding of stem cell research.

Did the good doctor's reservations for backing Bush's shortsighted policy, despite a background in medicine, finally come out or is this the beginning of a policy shift in time for the 2006 midterm elections?

Republicans, despite their protestations, are beginning to watch the polls. Is it a coincidence that, this week, Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld intimated that the troops in Iraq might decrease greatly by next year. Now, the equally unpopular stance on stem cell research is having a second look, too?

The utter intolerance of stem cell research by the Bush administration clearly illustrates a conversative party beholden to rightwing Christian nuts. The rigidity of the right has forced the administration to link abortion with stem cells because a embryo is destroyed to harvest the cells.

The argument of abortion, as hatched by the Republicans, has a stigma of guilt attached to women of so-called immorality.

The stem cell argument is completely different because the Democrats framed it before the Republicans did. With the presence of the Parkinson's-affilicted Michael J. Fox and the imagery of dear old grandparents suffering from Alzheimer's; the debate has been justly won by the left.

Now, Senator Frist, M.D. has forced the president's hand. Will the president veto the bill as he has said before? Wanna bet that Frist doesn't put the bill up for a vote until next year?