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Stem Cell Debate Wedges Bush Between a Rock and a Hard Place
At the same news conference, Harry Reid (Nev.), the Democratic leader, surely did not help Frist's presidential ambitions when he hailed Frist's "gallant efforts on behalf of this legislation." Reid said, "But for him, we wouldn't be to the point where we are now, and so I commend and applaud Senator Frist."
Specter, joining Democrats at the news conference, was also making things difficult for Bush; but while Frist's argument was medical, his was personal. "Had the research and stem cells been available, I wouldn't have had Hodgkin's," said Specter, his eyes glistening, as he spoke of his recent round with cancer.
  Sen. Sam Brownback brought a few guests: Abby Pell, 1, and Elisha Lancaster, 3, held by their mothers. After suffering brain damage, Abby was treated with stem cells from her own cord blood. Elisha was adopted as an embryo. (By Chip Somodevilla -- Getty Images) Washington SketchA national political reporter for the Post, Milbank writes Washington Sketch, an observational column about political theater in the White House, Congress and elsewhere in the capital. He covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns and President Bush's first term. Before coming to the Post as a Style political writer in 2000, he covered the Clinton White House for the New Republic and Congress for the Wall Street Journal. |
Sign Up for RSS FeedDianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) joined in. "I just had a member of my family, 44 years old, the father of two small children, a bodybuilder, diagnosed with Parkinson's," she disclosed.
"Mr. President," Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said on the floor, "I lost a beautiful young daughter some years ago to heart disease."
Coburn was not about to concede the personal-suffering point. "I'm a two-time cancer survivor," he told the chamber. "Cancer of the colon and melanoma."
Only Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) seemed immune to the emotional debate; he delivered a speech about the 219th anniversary of the Constitutional Convention and recited "O Ship of State."
But neither Longfellow nor anybody else was in a position yesterday to help Bush through the difficult veto he has vowed to cast. "We're going to see whether the first veto that the president of the United States makes in his entire political career will be a veto which will dash the hopes of millions of Americans," Feinstein taunted.
Specter, at the same news conference, announced that "there will be a request from a large delegation of senators, including many of the president's strongest allies on the Republican side, to urge him to sign the bill." And then, Specter warned, "he may get a personal call from Mrs. Reagan."
