Hello, Mr. President? My name’s Dave Sipley. I’m from Syracuse, New York.

Yes, I know that’s one of the blue states.

I did vote for what’s his name, yes. Why? I’ll get to that in a minute, sir.

Sir, former President Clinton was speaking last week at my alma mater…

No sir, he wasn’t doing it with my mother. It means college, sir.

Yes, I got in on the basis of alumni connections instead of natual talent as well, sir. But that’s not why I called you. I was calling because of what President Clinton said at Hamilton College last week.

No, sir. Alexander Hamilton has been dead for over 200 years. He was speaking at Hamilton, not to him. Like I am speaking to you at home. Oh, forget it. What the former president said was that our party had to offer an alternative to the Republican monopoly on talking about morals.

No, sir, I don’t think Republicans have a monopoly on morals. I just think you all talk about them more effectively than we do.

Yes, and I admire your views, which is to say that I think they are utter nonsense. It’s very easy for you to get crowds riled up when talking about the sanctity of human life.

Yes sir, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Human life should be protected. Like mine, for example.

No sir, I’m not worried about terrorists attacking Syracuse. I’m much more worried about the fact that I’m a diabetic. I’ve been one for 28 years. I’d like a cure. For a long time now, I’ve been living in fear of kidney failure. That my nerves are failing and my blood vessels are narrowing. That I’ll need heart surgery.

I know that’s self-centered of me. How about that I might go blind?

Thank you, sir. I'm glad we have a common ground there. I know it must be hard for you to plan an invasion of a foreign country without any long-range vision. Maybe we can work together on this. I’d like you to use federal funds for stem cell research to help find a cure for diabetes—and all those other diseases that other crips are always yammering on about.

I know they come from babies, sir. The problem is, they aren’t really babies. They aren’t ever going to get stuck in a womb and grow. No one is ever going to give birth to them. They’re going to get incinerated. They’re byproducts of in vitro fertilization.

No sir, not in Vito. In Vitro. Excess test-tube babies. They actually look like this. You can click on it if you want to see my source for the picture.

I know, sir. Hyperlinks are fun. And pictures really are better than words.

You're right, sir. Especially this picture. It doesn’t really look very human, does it? It’s a 100 cell blob that’s smaller than a booger, only more useful than one. It could cure a whole bunch of diseases. Like mine.

Well, sir, there is a chance that stem cell research won’t lead to anything. But there’s hope there. Frankly, I’d like to look forward to something for the next four years. And I’d rather have Americans find the answers than the Chinese or Europeans.

Yes, I suppose well-funded bio-tech companies could look for answers.

Okay, so they were big campaign contributors. But don’t you want this research going on in the public domain, in our universities and colleges?

Okay, so maybe you don’t. I just find it hard to believe that as you talk about the sanctity of human life, you forgot about the sanctity of my life—and then sold it out to a blob of protoplasm.

Sorry, sir. And a bunch of well-funded bio-tech companies.

No, sir, embryos can’t vote.

But I did, sir. For the other guy.

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