“Were frozen, early-stage embryos human life?” the president asked. If they were, Bush well knew, there was no escaping the pledge he’d made–repeatedly–as he curried favor with the religious right early in the 2000 campaign. His vow: to oppose funding for research on stem cells obtained by “destroying living human embryos.” Kass was elliptical but not encouraging about the use of frozen embryos, even ones that might otherwise be discarded. “They are the way you and I and all the rest of us started our lives,” he told Bush. “One goes with a heavy heart if we use these.” But what then about research using the stem-cell “lines” long since taken from embryos? Bush wanted to know. Isn’t it true that you wouldn’t need many of them to do groundbreaking research? And wouldn’t funding of such research be morally acceptable, or, at least, far less objectionable? The bioethicists cautiously agreed: it probably would be.
Bingo, as theologians like to say. Bush gave his first nationally televised prime-time address last week, and he chose as his topic the most complex and yet profound question of our time: the extent to which society, not nature, should control the building blocks of human life. He ended a 12-minute speech by unveiling the “existing lines” compromise he’d been privately market-testing. Kass, the president said, would head a commission on the federal role in the burgeoning fields of biomedical innovation.
It was a deft political solution that gave each side some modest comfort, even if it rested on murkier ethical and scientific grounds than many wanted to immediately admit. But the speech was less interesting for what it said than for the way in which it was produced: a shrewd, painstaking effort that spoke volumes about Bush the Younger and the White House he runs with growing confidence.
The political lab report from his stem-cell speech shows that Bush likes to plan ahead, and use the jujitsu of surprise and low expectations. He prefers to ignore reporters, except for times when inundating them with detail serves his purposes. Though aides tried to portray his decision as akin to a religious meditation, he ran the meetings like a CEO probing for weak spots in a marketing plan.
Politically, Bush’s strategic First Principle remains what it has been from the launch of his career: don’t needlessly get crosswise with the right. Bush wears a Texas Ranger belt buckle the size of a dinner plate, but can be as cautious as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife when an issue threatens to come between him and the cultural conservatives who are the base of the Republican Party. He wants their “leadership” inside the tent, if at all possible. On the day of his speech last week, one of the White House’s first “heads up” calls about the stem-cell compromise went to Douglas Johnson of the powerful National Right to Life Committee. (In the loop, as always, he was supportive.) One of the last went to officials of the National Institutes of Health–who’ll actually run the program.
A stem-cell showdown was inevitable, and Bush knew it even before he took office. Congress had banned experimentation with human embryos in 1995. But by 1999 the Clinton administration was moving toward financing of research on stem cells, as long as the government didn’t pay for extracting them from living embryos. Conservatives were outraged as the 2000 presidential primaries approached. Bush, who was viewed warily by some hard-liners–he refused to pledge to overturn Roe v. Wade–couldn’t afford to be outflanked. He issued a statement, written in consultation with pro-life leaders, opposing funding that would “necessitate the killing of a live human embryo.” He repeated that vow in the summer of 2000.
Even before the Inauguration, Bush insiders were privately fretting about the issue. They knew that the NIH was receiving applications for funding of stem-cell projects. More important, they knew that the vehement pro-lifer they had chosen to head Health and Human Services–former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson–was just as vehemently in favor of stem-cell research. One reason: the University of Wisconsin was a leading center for such study. Thompson had discussed the issue with White House aides on his first day on the job–even before he was sworn in. There was no low-key way to simply reverse the Clinton policy. “We knew we had a problem, and that we had to do something,” said a top Bush-administration insider.
Bush, moving methodically, requested a full review of embryonic-stem-cell science. On May 8, Bush, Thompson and Rove met privately over lunch. The president had boned up on the scientific issues. The three began sketching options. There were three. The most limited was to fund research solely on cells taken from adults, or from umbilical cords or placentas. The second was to use only existing, so-called “immortal” embryonic-cell lines. The third was to follow the Clinton lead and allow research on stem cells from frozen embryos that would otherwise be discarded.
White House insiders floated out the first option–sweetened by the promise of vast increases in federal funding. It didn’t fly. There were too many credible advocates for something more. And they weren’t just the usual Hollywood lefties, but also Republican conservatives, among them Sen. Orrin Hatch and Nancy Reagan, whose husband, the former president, suffers from Alzheimer’s. Bush also knew that the father of Andy Card, his chief of staff, had died of Parkinson’s, an ailment for which stem-cell research might lead to a cure.
So it was on to Plan B. Facing a painfully irreconcilable conflict between science and faith, Bush’s handlers decided to try something bold: to illuminate his predicament. Realizing that they would have to sanction some form of research–and risk outraging the right–they chose to turn the president’s decision-making pilgrimage into a kind of political outdoor Passion play. The theme: a man of conscience wrestles with the Big Questions high above the plane of mere politics. Bush would not only show that he took religious concerns seriously, but show media doubting Thomases that he could master a complex topic.
Soon enough, Washington was full of stories about Bush’s almost obsessive interest in finding an answer to the Question. The White House, normally hermetically sealed against leaks, was suddenly dripping with anecdotes, as Bush buttonholed everyone from the president of Notre Dame to experts among the legions of Old Blues at the Yale commencement. Bush brought up the subject at economic-policy meetings, and even at the birthday party of a member of the White House medical staff. Not usually one to claim diligent study habits (a prep-school no-no), he bragged about how hard he was hitting the books.
By early July, Bush realized he had a problem: the number of the existing stem-cell lines available for research. Were there enough? The president ordered up an NIH survey of the inventory. Meanwhile, he pressed visiting scientists on two questions: How many lines were needed? And why should the government pay for work on them? There was widespread agreement that the government had to be involved to oversee the process and speed it along. And most suggested that anywhere from 20 to 50 cell lines would be enough. But Douglas Melton of Harvard, highly respected and highly visible, warned that many more were needed, at least 100 to start. That way, Melton told Bush on July 9, he wouldn’t have to revisit the issue for some time. “When?” Bush asked. “In your second term,” Melton replied. The president liked the answer.
Bush secretly planned from the start to announce his decision in early August. The timing and the place were crucial. He wanted to speak after the busy legislative season. Congress would be scattered, the “punditocracy” away on vacation. He would have the stage to himself on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Other issues would then take over–specifically a troublesome decline in the budget surplus–before he had to head back to Washington after Labor Day.
Before flying west, Bush had to deal with Congress, and go to Europe for the G8 summit. While there, he would pay his respects to the ultimate leader of the opposition on the issue of embryonic-stem-cell research, Pope John Paul II. By then it was obvious that Bush wasn’t going to agree with the Holy Father, but the president needed to show conservative Roman Catholics that he valued the pontiff’s spiritual role. Some aides claimed to be surprised when the pope publicly admonished Bush, but a top insider said they knew it would happen–and didn’t mind. Afterward, Bush gave no indication that the pope had affected his thinking.
When Bush returned, it was time to button up the deal. He had discussed with Kass and Callahan the “poisoned fruit” question: if existing stem-cell lines were morally tainted in origin, could research on them be ethically acceptable? They told him the line he wanted to draw was a valid one, at least with respect to federal funding, as long as best efforts were made to discover the provenance of the cells. “I thought it was a possible way to go,” Callahan said later. But there was still the nagging question of the number and origin of cell lines. In late July the NIH reported back: there were 30–probably not enough, Bush advisers worried. Bush told them to look again for other “available” lines. The NIH scoured the world and came up with 30 more.
All that remained was the speech. As is often the case on big projects, Bush worked directly with his counselor and verbal alter ego, Karen Hughes. The two have put so many words into each other’s mouth that they speak as one. Hughes had sat through most meetings, scribbling in a spiral notebook or on a yellow legal pad every time an expert said something that seemed to impress the president. She would also write down phrases that he uttered with special conviction. Two weeks ago she left for vacation, and began writing drafts. The last expert Bush talked to on the subject, LeRoy Walters, thought Bush wanted to be “educator in chief” on the issue.
Instead, on TV last week, the president came off as student in chief. Alerting the networks only at the last moment, speaking from the old house at the ranch, he was the earnest schoolboy reciting his lessons. It was an unorthodox but effective speech: not a call to battle or a syrupy snow job, but a judiciously worded recitation of what he’d learned. There was anger and outrage on both flanks. The head of the American Life League said Bush was “no longer a pro-life president.” Melton, among other researchers, was skeptical of the cell-line numbers. “Until they can be verified, I’m not inclined to be wildly enthusiastic,” he said.
Indeed, if Bush thinks he’s clear of the stem-cell issue–just another CEO’s day at the office–he’s wrong. “Having called it one of the most momentous issues of our time, he has to know that this is just the beginning,” said William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard. In the meantime, most leaders of the cultural right were either mute or supportive, relieved that Bush had not gone further. It’s the kind of silence they appreciate on the Texas prairie, especially at the Western White House.
