Required Reading:

Stem Cells: A Political History.

Some interesting stuff that I did not know in that article. For instance, did you know that President Bush was the first president to allow the use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research? I knew he had allowed non-destructive ESCR, but did not realize that Clinton had not acted on that front.

It also makes President Obama look so much more the fool for diverting money from induced pluripotent stem cells—which are akin to embryonic stem cells but derived from adult stem cells—and adult stem cell (which both show tremendous promise) to embryonic stem cells (which have so far produced no cures or treatments).

So the relevant question here is: if you can produce iPSCs in two ways, one of which destroys a unique human life and poses ethical problems, and one of which has no such hindrance and as such poses no such ethical issue, why, Mr. President, do you chose the former?

The only options I can think of are: you are ignorant of the issue because it is "above your pay grade"; you are bowing to pressure from lobbyists; you are intentionally trying to devalue human life.