Give me demagoguery and give me death!

I still think Kerry is worse than Edwards, but maybe no longer if I keep hearing nonsense like this:

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards said.

I suppose that after a career making millions second-guessing doctors for a living one would be tempted to believe that he knew more about medicine than they did. Medical professionals don't seem as positive about the possibilities of embryonic stem cell research as Edwards is.

But Edwards must spread the belief that all we need for scientific progress is more money.

Hmm, maybe I like that idea after all. Gimme the money, Uncle Sugar, and I'll get right to work on that perpetual motion machine.

OK, no one will question that some money is necessary. But money is available from sources other than the govt. Really. And George W. Bush, the first president to release *any* federal money for stem cell research, did not bar funding of stem cell research - he merely stated that such funding would not be coming from the govt.

If Kerry and Edwards are so concerned for Michael J. Fox, the late Christopher Reeve or other big names, why would he make them wait on an act of Congress before seeing their research funded? The govt doesn't have to do a thing - donate the money and we can get started right away! Get famous musicians to hold benefits. Make movies. Recruit billionaires to set up big organizations to influence public opinion worldwide to raise money.

No, that's not the Edwards' way. We can see that where he has a choice between getting the research done sooner to save the lives he claims to care about, and having an issue to misrepresent against the Republicans, he'd rather be demagoguing. In the name of accelerating research, he misses a golden opportunity to advance it. The man is a disgrace.

And while we're at it, what about Michael J. Fox? Why isn't he leading efforts to raise money for embryonic stem cell research himself? Is it possible that he's not aware of the truth - that there's nothing about federal money that affects the outcome of research? Or is it just alien to his Canadian mind that individuals can spend their own money directly on health care?