Something was bothering me about the right-wing reaction to the Michael J. Fox commercials (other than the obivous revulsion to what they said about him), and I couldn’t figure out what it was that was bothering me. And then it came to me- this isn;t the first time the GOP and their enablers have attacked a sick man in the defense of embryos. Remember this:
Senator Specter apparently wants a place on your wall. Here’s why he shouldn’t get the chance.
Pick your poster child: Arlen Specter, bald from chemotherapy treatments for Hodgkin’s disease, saying that he is Exhibit A for embryonic stem-cell research … or those cute little kids in the AP photo with this caption: “President Bush appeared at the White House with babies and toddlers born of test-tube embryos, some wearing shirts that read ‘former embryo.’”
“I look in the mirror every day,” says Specter, “barely recognize myself. And not to have the availability of the best of medical care is simply atrocious.”
Meanwhile, President Bush was busy praising a Christian agency that helps couples adopt frozen embryos. Amidst 21 babies and toddlers who began their lives as frozen embryos left over after fertility treatments, the president said, “there is no such thing as a spare embryo.”
So, again, pick your poster child. The man with a disease who thinks there is vast medical potential in destroying babies described as embryos, or the children who developed from their embryonic state to roll around on White House carpet.
So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the viciousness from the compassionate conservatives who make up the right. They can’t help themselves- this is who they are. Smearing people is what they do. Vicious gutter politics is in their genes. It is what the Republican party has become.
It is why they have to go.