« MO: McCaskill in? | Main | More on the Santorum Poll »

August 02, 2005

Frist Supports Stem Cells

This says it best. From The Hill:

More from The Hill:

Frist did not notify either House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) or House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) about his decision to endorse the legislation, DeLay and leadership aides acknowledged last week. Instead, the announcement surprised House leaders just as they were hoping to highlight Republican victories heading into the five-week August recess.

“It was obvious that Senator Frist had planned this for some time, and it really befuddles the mind why he would want to launch that type of message when we should be doing a victory lap on victories that have been a long time coming,” one Republican strategist said.

In response, a Frist aide said, “Once the senator had made his decision, he wanted to let his colleagues know before the August recess.”

The flap is intriguing because the two chambers have been extremely productive this year, passing a flurry of bills last week as well as bankruptcy reform, class-action reform and the budget resolution in the spring.

I'm not quite sure what to think about this. Does it mean that Frist will work to overturn Bush's almost-certain veto of the stem cell bill? Will other Republicans follow his lead? If the Republicans switch sides on the stem cells issue, what will the religious right do? Will they abandon the issue? Considering Frist's switch, it seems like the "stem cells will help us cure diseases" argument is better than the ethically and scientifically confusing religious argument against stem cell research. With a little luck Frist and Nancy Reagan can work together to change a lot of Republican minds...

Posted by Max at August 2, 2005 08:59 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://oursenate.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/636

Comments

Posted by: John Rush at August 12, 2005 11:20 AM