You know the MSM has the back of our President when they put a headline up like the following:

Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics

Really?

So is he going to get rid of ALL restrictions on human experimentation? Would not any restrictions be considered “political interference” in science?

The short answer….nope….he will not get rid of all restrictions when it comes to human experimentation.

He is going to shield science from the interference his base wants him to get rid of only. That of stem-cell experimentation:

President Barack Obama on Monday cleared the way for a significant increase in federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research and promised no scientific data will be “distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda.”

Obama signed the executive order on the divisive stem cell issue and a memo addressing what he called scientific integrity before an East Room audience packed with scientists. He laced his remarks with several jabs at the way science was handled by former President George W. Bush.

“Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry,” Obama said. “It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

He said his memorandum is meant to restore “scientific integrity to government decision-making.” He called it the beginning of a process of ensuring his administration bases its decision on sound science; appoints scientific advisers based on their credentials, not their politics; and is honest about the science behind its decisions.

Appoint scientific adviser based not on politics but on their credentials? Sure thing. We will be waiting for an appointed adviser who believes, as millions of other Americans believe, that destroying a human embryo for experimentation is morally wrong.

I think we will be waiting a long time for that appointee.

The MSM and the left have been quite successful in defining this debate as the big bad Republicans banning stem-cell research. That’s a lie, and they know it. That kind of research was legal during the Bush administration, the only thing that was not legal was taxpayer money paying for it. Private funding was perfectly ok during the Bush years.

But the MSM has a long history of being disingenuous. At least the NYT’s was a little itty-bitty honest about it:

The ban, known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, first became law in 1996, and has been renewed by Congress every year since. It specifically bans the use of tax dollars to create human embryos — a practice that is routine in private fertility clinics — or for research in which embryos are destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury.

For a time, the ban stood in the way of taxpayer-financed embryonic stem cell research, because embryos are destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them. But in August 2001, in a careful compromise, President Bush opened the door a tiny crack, by ordering that tax dollars could be used for studies on a small number of lines, or colonies, of stem cells already extracted from embryos — so long as federal researchers did not do the extraction themselves.

But then we get this kind of disingenuousness from the WaPo:

The decision by President George W. Bush to restrict funding for stem cell research has been seen by critics as part of a pattern of allowing political ideology to influence scientific decisions across an array of issues

Once again, it’s only political ideology….not the fact that many find it MORALLY reprehensible, which the WaPo admits to deep into the article:

But the research is highly controversial because the cells are obtained by destroying embryos, which some consider to be immoral.

If one views it as immoral, as President Bush did, then it has nothing to do with political ideology.

Rep. Mike Pence:

“I’ve always believed it’s morally wrong to use taxpayer dollars that destroy human embryos. But now it’s not only morally wrong, but also completely unnecessary. It is as thought the administration and the abortion-rights Left in this country has completely ignored the extraordinary medical advances of the last year and a half, which have essentially rendered destructive embryonic stem-cell research unnecessary…From the very beginning of this administration, this president has been trampling on the sensibilities of pro-life taxpayers — using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion overseas, and the omnibus bill actually erodes the historic protection of Kemp-Kasten. And now this decision — it’s all part of a pattern.”

Rep. Eric Cantor:

“The President’s action today is not about whether or not to permit stem cell research, or even embryonic stem cell research in America. We already do each of those things. Today’s action is about forcing taxpayers to fund ethically troublesome – and unproven – research that destroys life.

“Nearly every American supports continued stem cell research, and Republicans laud the miraculous innovations made in ethical and sensible adult stem cell research. Unfortunately, today the Administration wasted an opportunity to unite our country around these ethically and scientifically sound innovations by allowing the use of taxpayer money for embryo-destructive stem cell research, which millions of Americans find morally reprehensible. This divisive action will divert scarce federal resources away from innovative and proven adult stem cell research.”

The fact of the matter is that private companies have done plenty of research on stem-cells, and nothing…absolutely nothing…has come out of it. The same cannot be said for adult stem-cell research.