For weeks before the speech, I had felt a sense of anxiety. I had constantly questioned my assumptions and weighed the options again and again. With the decision made, I felt a sense of calm. I didn’t know what the reaction would be. We hadn’t commissioned a focus group or taken a poll. Just as we had waited for the amen at the end of Jay’s prayer, we settled in to await the response.
Reaction to my stem cell decision poured in quickly. Many politicians and activists on both sides praised the policy as reasonable and balanced. While some scientists and advocacy groups responded with disappointment, many welcomed the unprecedented federal funding as a vote of confidence in their work. The head of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation issued a statement saying, “We applaud the president for supporting embryonic stem cell research.” My friend Kent Waldrep, the paralyzed TCU football player on whose advocacy board I used to sit, told a reporter, “It does everything the scientific community needs and I think a little bit more.”
To the degree that I faced criticism, it came from the right. One conservative activist compared my decision to Nazi conduct during the Holocaust. Another said, “I am ashamed of our president, who compromises and gives my generation the … mentality that human life can be picked apart, abused, and destroyed.” The spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said, “I seem to be the only man in America who is against the president’s policy.”
His loneliness did not last long. The tone of the debate quickly became heated and harsh. Looking back, it is clear that a toxic pair of factors had converged: money and politics.
Many of the first to turn against the policy were scientists. By providing some federal funding, I had whetted their appetite for more. In the spring of 2002, I addressed a major complaint by allowing privately funded embryonic stem cell research to be conducted at facilities that received federal dollars. It was an important step, but it did not satisfy the scientists, who constantly demanded more.
Advocacy groups quickly followed. Their high hopes for new cures had led them to make unrealistic promises. They seemed to feel that limiting the number of stem cells available for research would delay breakthroughs. They recruited well-meaning Hollywood stars to tug at heartstrings. They also discovered that the issue could help them raise large amounts of money. Some who had initially supported my decision transformed into vocal critics.
Politicians recognized that they, too, could capitalize on the issue. By 2004, Democrats had concluded that stem cell research was a political winner. It allowed them to open a new front in the abortion debate while also claiming the mantle of compassion. Candidates across the country ran TV ads that highlighted the benefits of embryonic stem cell research without mentioning that the science was unproven, the morality was in doubt, and ethical alternatives existed.
The Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, campaigned hard on the issue. Kerry frequently criticized what he called a “ban” on embryonic stem cell research. I pointed out that there was no such ban. To the contrary, I was the first president in history to fund embryonic stem cell research. Plus, there were no restrictions on funding from the private sector.
Nonetheless, Kerry’s campaign used stem cell research as the foundation for a broader attack, labeling my positions “anti-science.” The charge was false. I had supported science by funding alternative stem cell research, promoting clean energy development, increasing federal spending on technology research, and launching a global AIDS initiative. Yet the demagoguery continued all the way up to the election. The low point came in October, when Kerry’s running mate, Senator John Edwards, told a political rally in Iowa that if Kerry became president, “people like Christopher Reeve* will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.”
The stem cell debate was an introduction to a phenomenon I witnessed throughout my presidency: highly personal criticism. Partisan opponents and commentators questioned my legitimacy, my intelligence, and my sincerity. They mocked my appearance, my accent, and my religious beliefs. I was labeled a Nazi, a war criminal, and Satan himself. That last one came from a foreign leader, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. One lawmaker called me both a loser and a liar. He became majority leader of the U.S. Senate.
In some ways, I wasn’t surprised. I had endured plenty of rough politics in Texas. I had seen Dad and Bill Clinton derided by their opponents and the media. Abraham Lincoln was compared to a baboon. Even George Washington became so unpopular that political cartoons showed the hero of the American Revolution being marched to a guillotine.
Yet the death spiral of decency during my time in office, exacerbated by the advent of twenty-four-hour cable news and hyper-partisan political blogs, was deeply disappointing. The toxic atmosphere in American politics discourages good people from running for office.
Over time, the petty insults and name-calling hardened into conventional wisdom. Some have said I should have pushed back harder against the caricatures. But I felt it would debase the presidency to stoop to the critics’ level. I had run on a promise to change the tone in Washington. I took that vow seriously and tried to do my part, but I rarely succeeded.
The shrill debate never affected my decisions. I read a lot of history, and I was struck by how many presidents had endured harsh criticism. The measure of their character, and often their success, was how they responded. Those who based decisions on principle, not some snapshot of public opinion, were often vindicated over time.
George Washington once wrote that leading by conviction gave him “a consolation within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of.” He continued: “The arrows of malevolence, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me.”
I read those words in Presidential Courage, written by historian Michael Beschloss in 2007. As I told Laura, if they’re still assessing George Washington’s legacy more than two centuries after he left office, this George W. doesn’t have to worry about today’s headlines.
Far from the yelling on the TV sets and the campaign trail, my stem cell policy quietly moved forward in the labs. For the first time in history, scientists received federal grants to support embryonic stem cell research.
Scientists also used new federal funding for alternative stem cell research to explore the potential of adult bone marrow, placentas, amniotic fluid, and other non-embryonic sources. Their research yielded new treatments for patients suffering from dozens of diseases—free of moral drawbacks. For example, doctors discovered a way to collect stem cells harmlessly from the blood of umbilical cords to treat patients suffering from leukemia and sickle-cell anemia.
Much of this research was overseen by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the talented Algerian American I appointed to lead the NIH. I had put Elias in a tough position. He felt trapped between a president he had agreed to serve and the scientific community of which he was part. He did not agree with my embryonic stem cell policy. Yet he was more interested in new cures than in politics. He funded the alternative stem cell sources aggressively, and a good deal of credit for the breakthroughs in the field belongs to Dr. Zerhouni and his team of professionals at the NIH.
Unfortunately, most members of Congress paid more attention to politics than to the scientific discoveries. As the 2006 elections approached, Democrats made clear they would again use the issue as a political weapon. A U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri persuaded Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s, to attack her opponent in statewide TV ads. Some Republicans who had initially supported the policy feared for their seats and changed their minds. In July 2006, the House and Senate considered a bill that would overturn my stem cell policy by permitting federal funding for research that destroyed human life.