And it wasn't even Obama's winks and nods to the research community that he was hoping Congress would eliminate the long-standing Dickey-Wicker Amendment. A provision of the annual appropriations bills for federal health programs since 1985, this law prohibits federal funding of "the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death . . ."

While the prospect of creating human life via cloning whose only destination is to be research fodder was a lot to swallow, even there, some of Obama's supporters essentially took the position, in for a dime, in for a dollar.

What seems to have unsettled even many of those willing to cut Obama almost limitless slack is that he (1) simply says things that are painfully inconsistent and/or incoherent, (2) speaks in nothing more than boilerplate platitudes, (3) dismisses thoughtful objections as mere "politics," at the same time he drapes what was is, after all, a political decision in the supposedly apolitical mantle of "science," and (4) offers no ethical/moral grounds for his proposal. It is the latter that really unnerves all but the hardest-core supporters.

All these shortcomings were on display in Obama's March 9 talk explaining his "Stem Cell Executive Order and Scientific Integrity Presidential Memorandum" at the White House. I was both fascinated and annoyed by a particular pattern of rhetorical dishonesty that I suspect is becoming tiresome to a lot of people who are not necessarily with us. By that I mean having said that he is not avowing (whatever it is), Obama makes that selfsame avowal in the next breath.

For example, "At this moment, the full promise of stem cell research remains unknown, and it should not be overstated." This modest statement of fact is immediately followed by, "But scientists believe these tiny cells may have the potential to help us understand, and possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases and conditions. To regenerate a severed spinal cord and lift someone from a wheelchair. To spur insulin production and spare a child from a lifetime of needles. To treat Parkinson's, cancer, heart disease and others that affect millions of Americans and the people who love them."

In case anyone missed the point, at the end, Obama talks "about a day when words like 'terminal' and 'incurable' are finally retired from our vocabulary." No overstatement there, no siree.

It is as if Obama believes that offering a blank check to "science" is self-justifying. Science accomplishes good. Nobody's against accomplishing good. Thus it is impossible to object to what science does. The child-like moral reasoning is no more sophisticated than that.

Obama tossed in a throwaway line about "supporting promising research of all kinds, including groundbreaking work to convert ordinary human cells into ones that resemble embryonic stem cells." But even his wholly bogus pass at evenhandedness is duplicitous.

Its only function is to disguise the underlying, enormously dangerous rationale. Since at this juncture we can't say what will work best, we need to do everything!

Speaking of everything, what happens, as already is being whispered about, when large numbers of  "scientists" take the next step down the slippery slope? Since the "spare embryos" were "going to die anyway"; and since we "all agree" no cloned embryo will ever be allowed to be carried to term ("human reproduction"), why not grow the embryo to a stage where "it" can have "its" organs harvested? If you're worried about the immune system rejecting the organs, self-manufacture your own clone.

Since the cloned embryo that is created will be killed, not brought to term, this is fully consistent with Obama's statement that "we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction."

In the hands of a man who cannot recite the alphabet without looking at a TelePrompter, this is scary, scary business.