Congress embarks this week on the weightiest of debates on morality and the march of science, deciding whether to use public money for embryonic stem cell research and, in turn, setting up President Bush’s first veto.
Neither the House nor Senate has demonstrated enough support for the bill to override a veto, though the House probably will try, just to give Bush a definitive victory in the showdown.
Supporters of the research hold out faint hope that Bush, presented with new data and pressured by election-year politics, might reverse course and sign the bill.
This looks like a base-pleasing effort all around, part of the political Kabuki that I’ve come to expect on this sort of issue, but I have to say that I can think of quite a few bills I’d rather have seen Bush veto.