Once More, Into the Bush

It's been quite a week for George W. Bush, hasn't it? He issued the first veto of his so-called Presidency, giving a veto (later sustained by Congress) to a bill that would have allowed more federal funding for stem cell research. And he did so in a White House ceremony surrounded by parents with children born from frozen embryos that might have otherwise been used for stem cell research. Bush wanted to demonstrate his belief in the idea that embryos are life, and that killing off life for experimentation (forget his Iraq experiment) is wrong, conveniently forgetting that stem cell research allowed the medical breakthrough of conceiving human beings from frozen embryos in the first place. But why bother with those little ambiguities when it's so easy to make a case of black or white?

Speaking of which, Bush addressed the NAACP for the first time in his Presidency (another first!), hoping to increase his support among blacks and getting what might be called a polite response. ;-) And, of course, there was the G-8 summit, where he gave the first back rub of a foriegn leader in presidential history by giving Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, a Swedish massage. ("How was it for you, Fraulein Chancellor?") So he tried to get close to blacks and even closer to Europeans. God, he treated the German leader like a Volkswagen. He approached her from the rear to get her started! :-D