FETAL FUNHOUSE. It's hard to tell which circumstance produces funnier conservatism: when they lose, or when they win. As Bush's stem-cell veto is a definite victory for the National Review folks, you'd think they'd be in a relaxed and magnanimous mood about it. But their commentaries are comically strained and overreaching -- as if they know that the legislative success were but a chimera, and the struggle against bad wrong people thinking bad wrong things never-ending.

Kathryn Jean Lopez' offering has a wonderful premise: she's not anti-science -- the embryonic research advocates are! The advocates, you see, preferred the bill they eventually submitted to a more watery alternative, proving they weren't really serious about asking for what they didn't want:

Proponents of embryo-destroying research lost one of their favorite knee-jerk rhetorical points on Tuesday, as they succeeded in killing a bill that would have funded alternatives to embryo-destroying research...

Coming from a crowd that regularly throws the word “anti-science” at those who oppose embryo destruction and cloning, this is pretty rich. When given the option to vote for a bill that nearly no one could sensibly disagree with, they acted like spoiled two-year-olds who want their way and only their way — even if it’s impractical and Dad has already said “no.”

(Not sure who "Dad" is in this context. Maybe Lopez means her Dad.) I can see that the Democrats had a political interest in pushing the stronger bill -- might that be what Lopez is trying to say? No, what she's trying to say if these Congresscritters don't care what kind of bill they pass as long as it kills babies, because they are babykillers who love to kill babies until all the babies are killed:

On the federal level this week we’ve seen supposed proponents of stem-cell research say, No, none of this alternatives stuff, we only want embryonic-stem-cell research. The embryo is everything. Or rather, destroying embryos is everything -- that’s where they want research to be focused, and they’re happy to hold research that is free of embryonic entanglements hostage.

I so want to work DESTROYING EMBRYOS IS EVERYTHING into my coat of arms. The end of her article is a joy, too: "...such clear Party of Death votes as we saw Tuesday night in the House should be as deadly to political careers as they are to life." Citizens, do your duty -- stand outside the U.S. Congress waving fetuses and screaming!

Elsewhere, Maureen L. Condic hears Michael Kinsley argue that insensate clumps of cells are not people, and Candic knows where that sort of thinking slippery-slopes: to organ-farming in unwilling, live patients by 2036. (What, no sooner? Destroying embryos is everything!)

And let's not forget: these days, along with being evil and stupid, all liberals are uncivil. Joseph Loconte draws this beat, and compares the dirty-mouthed babykillers to the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, who responded to Bush's veto this way: "That's all right, we'll just sit here in the dark." Well, pretty near that, anyway. "I disagree with [the UOJCA]," says Loconte, "but I’m grateful that they have a seat at the table." Yeah -- if they're as wishy-washy as they sound, maybe Loconte can get 'em to pay for dinner.

I suppose if Bush had suddenly gone crazy and signed rather than vetoed the bill, these writers could have been even more entertaining. But surely it would have been much easier for them: plug a thesaurus into your outrage, and stand back! Today's stories requires something that is almost like thinking, but ever so much more difficult.