Remember When Bush Used Children as Political Props in Stem Cell Research Veto?

By: Jason Easley/politicususa

Republicans are comparing President Obama to Hitler and Stalin and claiming that he used children as political props yesterday, while ignoring George W. Bush’s use of child political props to veto stem cell research in 2006.

An editorial from Investors Business Daily raged, “Instead of providing them the same armed security his children get, the president exploits children as stage props to repeal a Second Amendment they haven’t been, and likely never will be, taught about.”

Fox News was “disgusted” by Obama’s use of children as political props:

The problem is that none of these conservatives seemed to have a problem with children joining the president on stage when George W. Bush did it in 2006 to announce his veto of stem cell research.

Here is the video:

Here is how the Pensito Review described Bush’s attempt to divert attention away from the real victims of his veto, “In a cynical attempt to focus the public’s attention away from the estimated 100 million mostly adult Americans suffering from diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s who could have benefited from the research, the president’s political operatives filled the room with a dozen or so “snowflake” children who were born from frozen embryos reclaimed from fertility clinics. The craven use of these children as political props became acutely ironic when Bush said of them, “These boys and girls are not spare parts.” Indeed, the children were not spare parts — they were red herrings.”

When Obama had children join him on stage, he was Hitler, Mao, and Stalin all rolled into one Kenyan package, but when Bush did the exact same thing for political cover in an attempt to justify an unpopular veto, he was “protecting innocent life.”

Lost in the swirl of conservative media paranoia and propaganda is the fact that Obama was announcing proposals in reaction to shooting that occurred in a school, where children were killed.

There is a direct connection between children and Obama’s action on gun control, so having children on stage with the president made sense. Even though the right is trying desperately to split the issue, the deaths of those 20 children in Newtown are the reason why the discussion about guns and violence is taking place right now.

The children at Obama’s event yesterday weren’t political props. They are the reason why the issue is being debated. George W. Bush’s cynical attempt to make children the face of stem cell research was a shallow ploy to manipulate an issue. Bush was hoping that people would subconsciously associate his veto with protecting children instead viewing it as a heartless denial of possibly life saving research for millions of Americans.

Where was the conservative outrage in when Bush used kids as political props in 2006? I guess their protection of innocent lives doesn’t apply to the people who went to the movies in Aurora, CO, or the children who died at Sandy Hook Elementary. Conservatives’ selective outrage based on the party affiliation of the president or the issue being discussed is pure hypocrisy.

After spending 2012 convincing themselves that Obama was so incompetent that anyone could beat him, the right has now shifted back into Obama is an evil dictator mode.

The painful reality for Republicans is that the president who bears a passing resemblance to the dictators they use for fearmongering is George W. Bush, not Barack Obama