Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Monday, Aug. 30, 2004
Democrats and their media stooges are deliberately distorting the facts about President Bush's support of stem cell research, and the media are trying to provoke a fight between himself and his brother, says radio talk show host and nationally syndicated columnist Michael Reagan.
In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, in advance of his appearance before the Republican National Convention in New York Wednesday night, Michael spoke frankly about a host of issues.
Asked if his dad would have approved of the way the president and the Republican Party are carrying out their programs and policies, Reagan, a columnist for NewsMax Magazine, said, "He would have approved of what George Bush is doing in the way he's carrying out the war."
"He probably would have disagreed with the spending that's gone on in this Congress, but he would have said the war right now is the most important thing. And that's being handled well by this president," Reagan added.
As to what he will say Wednesday night when he speaks to the convention, Reagan said: "I'm introducing a video that honors my father. I'll say a few things, but I'm not going to get political. I don't want to get to a point where the media can sit there and try to make this a Reagan-against-Reagan convention instead of a Bush vs. Kerry convention. I don't want to be pitted against my brother. That's what the media would love to do."
Asked if he takes exception to what his liberal brother, Ron, is saying these days, he said, "I disagree with his position on stem cell research and I disagree with how the media has covered it.
"The media has been running a disingenuous operation here. Ron makes a statement and the media covers it as if everything in it is factual and doesn't give you the other side.
"They don't explain that embryonic stem cells are not being injected into human beings because when they inject them into the lab mice and rats in their studies they're killing them.
"They're growing downstream cancers and tumors, and that's why nobody wants to inject them into humans. When people would sit there and say, well, the president is stopping this great research from going forward, they are wrong.
"There's no law in the private sector that stops embryonic stem cell or adult stem cell research. It's only banned when the government is involved."
He went on to say that President Bush has been made out to be the bad guy when he's actually approved "$521 million this year on all stem cell research," and pointed out that Bill Clinton didn't spend a dime on embryonic stem cell research.
"Those are the things that bother me. It stays out there as if George Bush has stopped something he is actually funding. When I go talk to people about this, they say 'wow, $500 million dollars? You mean there's no law against stem cell research?'
"They're surprised because the media doesn't do their job and tell the truth. They allow people to say misleading things and just let it lie there as if it were the gospel truth.
"The Democrat party brags that they are the party of black America while ignoring the truth that adult or core blood stem cells are effective in about 90 percent of sickle cell anemia cases which affect black Americans. They don't say a word about money being spent in those areas; they only want money spent on embryonic stem cell research that's killing lab mice and lab rats."
"Nor do they talk about other stem cell research that is helping people now.
"There is, for example, work being done with umbilical cord stem cells – stem cells from fully developed babies, not from human embryos.
"Cord blood stem cells are helping people with leukemia and lymphoma – all being treated with cord blood stem cells.
"There's a bill in Congress dealing with cord blood stem cell research that's just sitting there – it hasn't even been brought to the floor of the House for a vote because everybody's so paralyzed by the embryonic stem cell issue that they won't even vote on something that is helping people. "Out here in California, there's a proposition to spend $3 billion of taxpayers' money on embryonic stem cell research that will probably pass. Not one dime of that money will be spent on the adult stem cell side, which is helping. They want me to spend my tax money on killing lab rats."
On the Iraq war, Mike said it is a winning issue for President Bush.
"It will be good for the president. I hope that America wakes up and understands that we are actually winning this war and that good things are happening.
"If they look at that and see how the president has fought the war in a positive way, they'll re-elect him to carry out and finish the war instead of electing Kerry, because only God knows what he'd do – it would depend on what time of the day it is.
"I had General Tommy Franks on my radio show the other night and he told me ... he was in Vietnam for a year. During that year he received three Purple Hearts – he was wounded three times. But, unlike Kerry, he never used those three Purple Hearts to come home. He stayed there for his full year and did his duty."
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