John Edwards was in Iowa this week, where he declared:

“We will do stem cell research. We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other debilitating diseases. America just lost a great champion for this cause in Christopher Reeve. People like Chris Reeve will get out of their wheelchairs and walk again with stem cell research.”

Gotcha. Let me check that one off now as a campaign promise that will not be fulfilled.

Charles Krauthammer, himself confined to a wheelchair, responds to this nonsense:

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately raising for personal gain false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.

Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?

This is the dirty little secret of stem cell research — cures for these diseases cannot be guranteed, nor will they come quickly if they do come. I can appreciate the desire of Democrats and others to advance the scientific process, but I think it’s pretty offensive to build that case on the backs of disabled people.