Fun with words

Tony Snow backed off his assertion that Bush vetoed the Stem Cell bill because he felt it was the Federal Government financing murder (to paraphrase). I guess they felt that "murder" was to radical a word.

Instead, Snow says, the President feels that its wrong for the Feds to finance something that results in the "destruction of human life."

I actually liked his first reason better. Mostly because I think it was the truth. Truthful radicalism is great, we need more of it. However, Snow's new wording is just goofy. Does anyone really not equate "destruction of human life" with murder? Did W really think to himself, "This will result in the destruction of human life, but it's not murder." Or is a sentence like "The Hutus just destroyed a bunch of human life in Rwanda" really any different than "The Hutus murdered 800,000 Tutsi's?" Furthermore, how can the guy who signed more death warrants than any other American in modern history have any qualms about using state money for the "destruction of human life?" And doesn't War destroy human life, often innocent human life at that?

I get that the scientific community reamed Bush for the veto and called him a simpleton, but let's be honest, they're not the first to call him that. I'm no Bush fan, but when he vetoed the stem cell bill, I thought he was at least being honest, I think he does think its murder, and that's fine. He should have stuck to his guns, kept the debate about when human life begins, societies responsibility to protect life and the applications to abortion going. Not only that, but his conservative base appreciated his wording, why backtrack?

All this, dare I say, Orwellian wordsmithing just hurts his credibility even more.