and is there really any reason to placate this tiny minority of extremists?

Stem cell decision ignites right's ire

He called for reducing abortions and seeking common ground on one of the nation’s most divisive issues — promises that led some on the right to think maybe, just maybe, Barack Obama was a different kind of Democrat.

But no more.

A series of decisions in the past two months — capped by an announcement Monday that he’s abolishing Bush-era limits on embryonic stem cell research — has led to a reassessment of Obama by some Christian conservative and other religious leaders, who now charge him with inflaming the very cultural divisions he once pledged to heal.

In fact, Obama’s stem cell decision sparked a volley of rhetoric reminiscent of the height of the culture wars that defined American politics through the 1990s.

“It has really been a disappointment,” said Brian Burch, president of Fidelis and CatholicVote.org. “The people who argued during the campaign that Obama’s pro-life rhetoric represented a reason to be hopeful have been totally discounted. We are 60 days in, and he has taken advantage of every opportunity to shut the door on any consensus building on the issue.”

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Obama was quick to note that a majority of Americans support his move to increase federal funding for stem cell research, which scientists hope can someday lead to cures for Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries and other afflictions. Four congressional Republicans, including Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, joined him at the White House announcement.

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But Obama also tried to steer a middle course, at least rhetorically. And on the campaign trail, it was a way to reach out to moderate voters, particularly Catholics in key Rust Belt states, with a message that he shared their values about the importance of reducing the number of abortions.

In the past two weeks, however, Obama angered abortion opponents by nominating Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who vetoed anti-abortion legislation, as Health and Human Services secretary and deciding to overturn a Bush administration policy allowing health care workers to refuse to perform a service that violates their beliefs. Shortly after his Inauguration, Obama lifted a ban on U.S. aid for international family planning organizations, although he pledged at the time to work with people on all sides of the issue to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies.

None of these decisions come as much of a surprise, even to those who oppose each one. But taken together, they have deflated expectations among abortion opponents about the promise of finding common ground with an abortion-rights president.

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These extremists are the looneys who somehow think that throwing away an embryo from a fertility clinic is better than using those cells to help actual, living, breathing human beings.

And they somehow think that Obama's desire to reduce the number of abortions - shared by probably every human being on the planet - does not equate to limiting access to abortions. It means education so that people don't need to have an abortion.

Obama bases his decisions on simple common sense - which is where he gets in trouble with the extremists who only want him to base his decisions on 2000 year old fairy tales.

As long as he doesn't fall into the trap of trying to placate the crazies, he will end up as one of the finest presidents...