Archive for September 16, 2008

John McCain and Stem Cells: a Calculated Lack of Clarity

Last week, the McCain campaign released a radio ad that tests the limits of how many times one can hear the phrase “stem cells” without being a little grossed out.

In it, McCain pledges that he, Palin, and his “Congressional allies” will lead the fight to bring life-saving stem cell research to Americans in need. Thing is, that’s one fight that Palin has openly said she won’t be leading – “[that] research would ultimately end in the destruction of life. I couldn’t support it” – and a fight that the GOP platform openly opposes in all forms.

And, the contextually ambiguous ad debuts just as McCain delivered a deliciously waffled response to the “ScienceDebate2008″ question about stem cells:

While I support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, I believe clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress. Moreover, I believe that recent scientific breakthroughs raise the hope that one day this debate will be rendered academic. I also support funding for other research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research which hold much scientific promise and do not involve the use of embryos.

Oddly, McCain, the “original maverick,” says that he endorses “federal funding” but does not say to what extent. The federal government currently funds stem cell research, but limits its funding to extant cell lines. McCain’s statement doesn’t really express any clear disagreement with the current federal policy, nor does it suggest a promise to expand federal funding: in fact, it sounds curiously like Bush’s 2001 speech in which he, too, relied on the (empty) promise of non-embryonic stem cells to dodge the difficult issue and deny funding for new embryonic lines.

I would have no problem resolving the doubt in McCain’s favor by referencing his previous support for expanded federal funding, but for his selection of Palin and recent cozying up to the religious right: pre-2008 McCain was obviously in favor of more stem cell lines, and could legitimately live up to the implicit promise of his “Stem Cell” ad. Post-2008, post-Palin McCain, though?

There’s no doubt that McCain is trying to have it both ways: his ad implies a promise to middle America to expand funding for stem cells, while his running mate implies a promise to the religious right to oppose stem cell research. The only question is, who’s he lying to?

In this uncertainty, despite the flak he’s getting for it, Biden is right (good attack dog!) to question just how accurate it is for Sarah Palin to claim the mantle of the defender of special needs children: good for her for raising one, but it leaves the rest of America’s special needs children out in the cold if she’s not willing to authorize research that has the potential for curing them (of course Down’s Syndrome isn’t curable by stem cells, but other diseases are). Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s a feminist, and just because she has a sick child doesn’t mean she’s doing anything to help other sick children.

Palin’s Favorability Ratings Fade

Good news, everyone! The even better news, of course, is that McCain’s surge in the polls of late can be credited to two, and only two things: (1) convention bounce, and (2) Sarah Palin. The former has probably faded; the latter is in the process.

Ads that Make Rove Blush

Reacting to some of John McCain’s attack ads and characterizations of Barack Obama, even Karl Rove is forced to admit: “McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the ’100 percent truth’ test.” When you’ve gone places where even Rove won’t, it’s definitely time to take stock.

The Disintegration of America’s Pomerium

Crossed.

The grim realities of the war on terror completely obliterate the concept of the “battlefield”: our current enemy lacks the “honor” to meet us in open battle or, in fact, to provide us the basic courtesy of a battlefield (I realize that this statement borders on the embarrassingly obvious, but stay with me for a minute). While the idea that our entire world – indeed, our home soil – can be part of the “battle” is no doubt discomforting to us individually, it also requires no less than a revolutionary re-evaluation of the concept of the State & Home, viz. the battlefield.

Our modern notions of the guaranteed separation between Home & War trace back to the Roman Republican, when Roman arms bought with blood the security of the central cities: antiquity was not a safe place, and the practice of settled, civilized life required a constant struggle against chaotic forces (rebels, nomads, barbarians, highwaymen…). Rome’s greatest gift to its people, then, was the creation of an area inside which citizens could be safe, and protected by the military from the dangers of the outside world.

The price of this protection was a standing army, a force which even the ancients recognized was inimical to the idea of a free & civil society: if civilization required a standing army, a “free” civilization required that the army intrude upon the zone it defended as little as possible. And so the Romans created the romantic (haha) notion of the “Pomerium,” a sacred line surrounding the city which no (mobilized) Roman army could pass. Field commanders were entrusted with the solemn right (and duty) of dispensing life & death in defense of the Republic, symbolized by the Fasces (twelve sticks bundled with an axe – see right – given to every general and carried by his lictors); but no general could enter Rome while “holding,” literally or symbolically, the Fasces. Military power could only ever exist outside the homeland, and only in her defense (except in the gravest of situations, in which case, for only one year, a dictator was appointed by the Senate).

Our Constitution reflects the similar idea that, though we owe our lives to the military, we prefer not to be reminded of the fact: look to the never-litigated Third Amendment, the limited circumstances under which the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended (insurrection & rebellion), and the many, many cases holding that the President’s “commander in chief” powers are meant “for external use only.” See, e.g., Ex Parte Milligan (holding that military tribunals in a state not in revolt were unjustified).

Though I’m as big of a champion of civil liberties as there is – I stand firmly behind Ben Franklin’s famous aphorism, that “those who would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserve neither, and will lose both” – it’s clear that this strict dichotomy between Home & Battlefield is no longer tenable. The War on Terror is so nasty, precisely because it requires our generals to carry the terrible power of the Fasces both at home and abroad. It’s beyond the scope of this post to pose a solution – that’s for another day, I think – but at the least we should accept that the bright lines are gone.