Caplan on Bush's veto of stem-cell bill

Art Caplan is at his best today in his column about Bush's promised veto of H.R.810. Here are the opening and closing paragraphs:

President Bush’s embryonic stem cell policy began with lies and has now ended with one.

Bush reserved his first veto as president for one of the only valuable things this do-almost-nothing Congress has managed to actually get done.

With a flourish of a veto pen that has remained dormant no matter how dopey Congress has been, the Senate bill allowing public funding of embryonic stem cell research has been consigned to the legislative trash can. . . .

With his veto the president has now reaffirmed a policy that never made any sense, garnered no scientific support to speak of, was abandoned by both houses of Congress and the leaders of his own party and, most importantly, got no traction with those most in need of the benefits of the research — patients and their families.

The president has now told doctors, researchers and patients to drop dead. Science policy in the Bush administration is best made in the White House, not by scientists and not by Congress.