So Whaddya Plan To Do About It, Mr. President? Land On Another Aircraft Carrier?

"I'm very concerned about cloning," the president said. "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes accepted."

Well, with apologies to Tom Lehrer, I've sure gotta admire the courage of a man who stands before the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and comes out in favor of a "culture of life" knowing everybody else in the room opposes it.

And it doesn't take any courage for me to come to my own blog and say, "So what?' either. But: So What? As you once so eloquently put it yourself, Mr. President, who cares what you think? What could possibly give you the idea that you exert some sort of moral leadership, on the sanctity of life or any other issue, except among those who already agree with you anyway, those who are the intended audience for that silly slogan? Culture of Life. As though Parkinson's sufferers and people with spinal cord injuries are less alive than leftover frozen embryos. Genuine moral leadership wrestles with real problems. You, Mr. President, put stickers on a bumper, and pose in front of banners. Troubling? What's troubling is the easy certitude of the medieval monastery in the world of the 21st century. The rest of the world doesn't await the moral approval of any U.S. President. This one especially.

On second thought, there is something you can do. Demonstrate real personal leadership. Let's see you produce an unbreakable living will expressly forbidding the use of any medical advance based on embryonic stem cell research in your own case. Have a big signing ceremony. Let's hear you take the pledge that in the eventuality that you become a paraplegic, or undergo radiation therapy, or in any of the countless possible conditions such research might some day cure, you will not avail yourself of any. Confine yourself to those 72 lines you approved, the ones which are hopelessly contaminated. Lead on, Mr. Bush.