Friday, Sep 5, 2008
"He, during the months of May, June and July, frequently asked people, even in the context of completely different meetings, about stem cell research and about their opinions," Karen Hughes, Bush's then-top communications aide, told the New York Times in an Aug. 11, 2001 article. Not even Hughes, who has just published a new book, "Ten Minutes from Normal," and has been making the media rounds adamantly defending Bush's handling of terrorism, has suggested that during the months of May, June, July and August 2001, Bush was distracted from his stem cell "obsession" by al-Qaida.
In the August 2001 Times article, Hughes read back her notes to Times reporters from one of three separate July 9 Oval Office meetings Bush had that day regarding stem cell research: "I must confess I am wrestling with a difficult decision," Bush told an invited doctor. To date, neither Hughes nor anyone else in the White House has produced any notes from a 2001 meeting in which Bush expressed to outside experts how he was agonizing over terrorism threats.
Even Rice, Bush's national security advisor, was drawn into the administration-wide debate over stem cells that summer. Scientists at Stanford University, where Rice once served as provost, contacted her and asked her to intervene on behalf of unrestricted scientific research. But she refused.
The issue surrounding embryo stem cell research came to the forefront because President Clinton permitted federally funded medical researchers to perform research using stem cells as long as they did not destroy the embryos themselves. Clinton argued the cell lines did not fall under a law passed by Congress prohibiting government funding of research that would harm or destroy embryos. The Department of Health and Human Services ruled that cells were not themselves embryos and therefore the National Institutes of Health could fund grants involving their use.
During the campaign, Bush said he would overturn Clinton's decision, saying he opposed federal funding for research. In office just one week, after an early antiabortion initiative which included a ban on foreign aid to overseas family planning groups that used their own funds to support abortion, and his promise to review federal approval of the RU-486 abortion pill, Bush indicated he would not support any funding of research involving human embryos. Many observers thought the final decision would simply be handled through a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services. But when Bush's own HHS secretary, Tommy Thompson, as well as prominent, conservative members of Congress came out in support of continuing the federally funded research, arguing it could hold key medical breakthroughs for juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, Bush's decision became more politically difficult.
"The one thing we saw in Bush's first months in office was he was consumed with the agenda of his base: tax cuts, missiles defense and critical social issues that energized the religious constituencies," says Thomas Mann, political analyst at the Brookings Institution.
After months of deliberation, Bush decided that he would not permit federal money to be used for research on new lines of stem cells, but would allow it for existing lines. He insisted 60 such existing lines were available to researchers.
The final decision, spun as a compromise, upset some stalwart antiabortion activists. But for the most part Bush's move pleased his political base. Focus on the Family president Dr. James Dobson praised the president, insisting he had "courageously upheld his promise to protect unborn children." The Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson also heaped praise on Bush.
Over time, Bush's assertion regarding the 60 stem cell lines has proven to be untrue. The Council on Bioethics, created by Bush himself, reported that by September of 2003, just 12 eligible stem lines -- not 60 -- were available to federally funded researchers.
"They were trying hard to thread a very small needle and they did it the way they often do such things," says David Seldin, communications director for National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. "They made something up."
With his first televised speech to the nation on an urgent issue, Bush successfully established an image, constructed by the White House and broadcast by the media, of a president who had thought long and hard about a significant matter, been deeply involved in the making of policy, consulted far and wide, and achieved a savvy political position that was popular with public opinion. After his Aug. 9 speech, Bush spent the rest of the month at his Crawford ranch, not returning to the White House until Aug. 31.
No one, except for the president and his national security team, knew of the al-Qaida threat warnings they were receiving.
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