Hard to watch. Powerful.
I guess if you can spend this much money on a campaign with stem cells at the center, you can get an ad like this together. But this ad may well foreshadow the next presidential election. Joshua Marshall noted in his Talking Points Memo that the thing is still too close to call (well that wasn't his metaphor, but I didn't like his metaphor. But the ad is precisely what will turn the tides against the Rove move to turn social issues into a "get out the church vote" in key swing states. Maybe.At a minimum it returns the tone of the debate to the Star Versus Star model, where you'll recall (well, I do anyway, because I had to debate him) that Mel Gibson was the best that the "other side" could do - and he's begun to demonstrate that his hard line position may be a symptom of near-psychosis perhaps a less effective "star representative." There are always the Snow Children, I guess.
What is so troubling about these commercials, as with the Reeve commercials, is that they plainly foment therapeutic misconception: people in Missouri should not have to believe that Mr. Fox would be cured if only the President had funded stem cell research, or that Missouri could somehow do much much more than its current, formidable stem cell research were there a little bolus of cash in that state for the science. It's not as bad as right wing ads that flat out lie about adult stem cell "therapies," or signing ceremonies with a few of the miniscule number of embryos ever to be adopted - none of whom were destined for stem cell research anyway. The ad is above
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Power advert.
Painful commentary left by other people watching the commercial on YouTube, though - although I suspect it's an accurate cross-section of beliefs about stem cells.
- by Kelly on Oct 21, 2006 at 9:40 PM | link
"Adult stem cell 'therapies'"????? What is with the quotes?
- by Laura(southernxyl) on Oct 23, 2006 at 12:29 AM | link
It's not as bad as right wing ads that flat out lie about adult stem cell "therapies,"
I really don't understand this judgement. What exactly is worse about these right wing ads, and what lies do they tell? Could the author elaborate this point, please?
- by Electrolux on Oct 24, 2006 at 1:17 AM | link
A completely deceptive ad. Talent has not urged the outlawing of stem cell research. He opposes Amendment 2, which would create a MO constitutional right to human SCNT. That isn't the same thing at all.
- by Wesley J. Smith on Oct 24, 2006 at 3:55 PM | link
Wesley, the ad says Talent "opposes expanding stem cell research," and that he "wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope." The latter reference, I think, is to Talent's co-sponsorship of Sen. Brownback's anti-cloning bill, which would indeed criminalize cloning--and not just "reproductive cloning."
- by Stephen Latham on Oct 24, 2006 at 11:08 PM | link