health — Page 3

I’d commend E. J. Dionne Jr.’s piece in the Washington Post today. An excerpt:

American politics took an important turn last week at a church in the foothills of Southern California’s Santa Ana Mountains.

When Rick Warren, one of the nation’s most popular evangelical pastors, faced down right-wing pressure and invited Sen. Barack Obama to speak at a gathering at his Saddleback Valley Community Church about the AIDS crisis, he sent a signal: A significant group of theologically conservative Christians no longer wants to be treated as a cog in the Republican political machine.

…

And thus it came to pass that when Warren called a conference at his church last Friday on World AIDS Day, among those he invited were two potential presidential candidates. It was unsurprising that one of them was Sen. Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican and a loyal social conservative who has taken up the AIDS issue with passion and commitment.

But when the other invitee turned out to be Obama, parts of the old evangelical political apparatus went after Warren as a heretic. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, declared that Obama’s views on abortion — Obama is pro-choice — represented “the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality” and insisted that Warren had no business inviting him to Saddleback.

[Read more…]

In the nearby state of Missouri, Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill are neck-and-neck in a race for the US Senate. MSNBC argues that this might be the bell-weather election of the cycle, but even if Talent wins I think a strong showing by Democrats elsewhere is quite possible. Josh Marshall has a point, however, about the “irrational exuberance” of some democratic voices out there; still a lot of time before the election, and tides can shift quickly. There’s a lot of money flowing around, and who can predict events on the ground?

But back to the Talent-McCaskill contest. Its close; apparently, real close. Turnout by the bases and appeals to the swing voters will likely decide it. And that latter, I think, is why the race keeps coming down to the stem-cell issue.

I’ve not been following a lot of the ads on teevee (mainly because they’re back and forth about who has done nursing homes more wrong), but when Josh Marshall pointed out this McCaskill ad featuring Michael J. Fox, I was intrigued. It might make a big difference:

The stem-cell debate is complex, as are positions that support or oppose fetal stem-cell research. There are emotional components to the argument on both sides; the one in this ad, I wonder, might make the difference.