Exploiting the Man of Steel

Democratic VP candidate John Edwards got into some hot water for remarks he made about Christopher Reeve. Edwards called Reeve "a powerful voice for the need to do stem cell research and change the lives of people like him. If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

That didn't sit too well with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He said, "I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve—I think it is shameful—in order to mislead the American people."

Now, for those who capitalized on 9/11 for political gain to criticize John Edwards of being "opportunistic" is a bit hypocritical. Besides, it is impossible to divorce the image of a wheelchair-bound Superman from the issue of stem cell research since the last decade of Reeve's life was devoted to that particular cause.

Nevertheless, Frist does have a point. The Democrats are indeed capitalizing on the suffering of others. They have demonstrated over the years that they are not above any lie in order to advance their political agenda. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear Edwards say that if John Kerry were elected president, we could get enough funding for stem cell research to actually raise Christopher Reeve from the dead.