"Every Life Is a Priceless Gift of Matchless Value"

Quoth George W. Bush, May 24, 2005 George Bush was not referring to the lives of the 1647 American soldiers who have died in his unnecessary war in Iraq. No. The men who have given their lives so that George Bush can prance and preen and pretend he's an alpha male macho-man have no value at all to George W. Bush. The deaths of all these American soldiers are so unimportant to our President that he goes to no military funerals and he won't allow the returning caskets to be viewed by the families of the dead. That would be bad press. The dead, maimed and wounded in Iraq are simply the inevitable cost of war-collateral damage. So don't give them another thought because President Bush certainly does not. They have no value except when they can be used for PR. Well then, what's the life which is a priceless gift of matchless value that the Prez is ranting and raving about and should be spared at all costs? Why, it's an undifferentiated clot of protoplasm, which is a few days old and is called an embryo. By the end of the third week in a human womb, an embryo is roughly the size of this letter “o”. An embryo that is a few days old is a collection of cells too tiny to be seen. A lot of medical terms are being tossed around these days amongst the impassioned folks on both sides of the aisle. But a simple definition of stem cells might be a good idea since the President of the United States has nearly hyperventilated when saying their life is of matchless value. The stem cells that scientists want to study and research are called pluripotent cells. Pluripotent stem cells can give rise to any type of cell in the body except those needed to develop a fetus. A fertilized egg is called totipotent because its potential is total; it can give rise to all the different types of cells in the body. Stem cells that can give rise to a small number of different cell types are called multipotent Pluripotent stem cells are isolated from human embryos that are a few days old. Cells from these embryos can be used to create pluripotent stem cell "lines" -cell cultures that can be grown indefinitely in the laboratory. The embryos, which are at issue in Congress, are embryos that were used in fertility procedures and had been frozen. They no longer are needed and the couples involved in the fertility procedures have Okayed their use for research. After the pluripotent stem cells are extracted, the embryos will be destroyed. The Prez says he will veto the use of federal funds for this type of research because these bits of matter have matchless value. George W. Bush, of course, could never explain to you the fine points of stem cell research. He can't even explain to you his plan for Social Security reform. It isn't so much because his brain is damaged, which of course it is. But the real problem is that George W. Bush is a narcissist and doesn't care about anything except that which affects him personally. Abortion does not affect him personally, and the use of frozen embryos for research does not affect him personally. The only thing that affects GWB personally is his image when he's on-camera talking about these issues. How does the public think he looks when he's acting concerned? How does the public think he sounds when he's trying to be sincere? That's the President's only interest or focus. Can narcissists be cured? No. Will talk therapy help? Maybe, but most narcissists will con their therapists. Will medication help? Yes, but it also takes away the feeling so necessary to narcissists that they are special. The narcissist's motto is “aut nihil aut unique”-be special or don't be at all. The GOP is so arrogant that it has not formed a cogent Plan B for any of its fiascoes. No Plan B for the Iraq debacle. No Plan B for the Social Security disaster. No Plan B for the Schiavo mess. No Plan B for dealing with DeLay. No Plan B for the Abu Ghraib horror. No Plan B for the filibuster defeat. No Plan B for the stem cell research slap in the face. And obviously, there is no Plan B for when George W. Bush slides down the rabbit hole, which is as inevitable as all the other GOP humiliations.