Another simple question the White House can't answer

[NOTE: Blogger is having all kinds of problems today, but I'll keep trying to post.]

I have my problems with Tim Russert, but sometimes he's right on the money. Case in point: an interview yesterday with White House chief of staff Josh Bolten on stem cells. It's always a waste of time listening to an administration shill regurgitating talking points, but it's fun to see them get a total beatdown.

MR. RUSSERT: Well, 128 embryos were adopted. But 400,000 are now not being used, and will be probably discarded. And you’re saying they should not be used for research by the federal government.

MR. BOLTEN: Yes, that is the president’s policy.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you then move to close down in vitro clinics—if, in fact, those embryos are being created and used by private companies for research and the president’s spokesman says that’s murder, and the president said it’s a human life, why not then close down the in vitro fertility clinics? Because they’re creating embryos that, in the president’s view, will be murdered.

MR. BOLTEN: That’s not where the president has, has drawn the balance. He’s drawn the balance with—the line with federal funding, people’s tax dollars not going to—not going to incent the further destruction of the human life. Look, 400,000...

MR. RUSSERT: But he will—he will allow private cell research companies to “destroy human life.”

MR. BOLTEN: That issue isn’t before him. What’s before him is what—the issue of what will federal funds be used for.

Look, those, those 400,000 fertilized...

MR. RUSSERT: But he could take steps to outlaw that.

MR. BOLTEN: Those 400,000 human—fertilized human embryos, I’m sure the president fervently wishes that, that every single one of them is going to get adopted and turn into one of those beautiful kids we saw at the ceremony.

Russert also trashes Karl Rove's phony argument about adult stem cells being "far more promising." Bolten can't answer that, either.