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deteriorating stem cells previously allowed by Bush was never designed to pass with 67 votes, enough to override his veto.
The entire plot of the Senate vote was to regain some of Bush's evangelical base by passing a bill that Bush could safely veto. In doing so, politicians up for election could use the vote for cover by telling constituents back home they support research to end the pain and suffering people are going through. By vetoing the bill Bush could score points with the hard liners that make up 40 percent of the GOP convention delegates every four years.
You can count on the fact Pete Ricketts, Nelson's Rove-picked self-funding opponent would have voted no, Ricketts wanting to pander to the religious right himself.
As a political move, Nelson checkmated Ricketts with his vote. Ricketts would have voted the same and now cannot unleash a slurry of half-truth commercials making Nelson out as this century's Josef Mengele,
But neither can Nelson look in the eyes of the 70 percent of Nebraskans who support this research and honestly say he did what was best for Nebraska and honored their wishes.
The argument of the religious right is the destruction of a stem cell destroys what could be a human someday. The flaw in that logic is the stem cells to be used are surplus from fertility clinics. Those cells are slated for disposal. Under the legislation Nelson voted against those cells would instead be used for medical research.
Should the day come when some little child stands up and walks away from his wheelchair for good because of stem cell research, Nebraskans cannot look back and give thanks to Ben Nelson.
Nelson chose pandering over statesmanship, politics over the majority. Nelson has effectively said he'd rather be a modern day theocrat like those who imprisoned Galileo for his thinking than Galileo himself.
We expect more out of our United States Senators.
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