WASHINGTON - President Bush readied the first veto of his presidency to stop legislation to ease limits on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.
Bush planned to sign a veto message Wednesday afternoon without any ceremony or photographers to record the historic moment. "He doesn't feel it's appropriate," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
But the president was to speak about the issue later in the White House East Room, surrounded by 18 families who "adopted" frozen embryos that were not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children. "The message there is that an embryo can create a human being," Snow said.
While both the GOP-run House and Senate defied Bush in passing the measure to expand federally funded embryonic stem research, supporters do not appear to have the two-thirds vote margin needed to override such a veto.
I don't know which is worst--the fact that Bush is only now using his veto after five years in office, or that he is using his veto on a socially and politically-charged bill such as stem cells? You can bet that the White House spin-meisters will be using this veto as a means to prop up a Republican-controlled Congress that is slipping down in the polls. And, of course, Bush uses his veto with the smug knowledge that Congress will be unable to over-ride his veto--thus instituting a major check on his "dictatorial" powers.
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