A sobering setback   For those holding out hope for stem cell research to be the magic cure, the reality is less than wonderful. Stem cell research may be no more than a cruel hoax.  

Or a political game.  Certainly, the Michael J. Fox video ad is a disgraceful and cheap political shot. In accusing the Republican candidate Senator Talent of wanting to criminalize stem cell research, Fox discredits himself and his organization.   He demeans himself.  As a poster to utube remembers, wasn't it John Edwards in 2004 who implied that if John Kerry were elected, Christopher Reeves would walk again because they would do the right things? Charlies Krauthhamer who does live in a wheelchair, was disgusted.

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.

It's politics. Democrat politics.

Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot. It is part of the game. It is one thing to promise ethanol subsidies here, dairy price controls there. But to exploit the desperate hopes of desperate people with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the pale.

It was true in 2004.    And it is still despicable.