Finally, Will writes, “Both Bush and Frist have thought seriously about this subject and come to mildly divergent conclusions. But neither conclusion crosses the scarlet line of supporting the creation of embryos to be mere sources of cells. And neither conclusion is the result of the sort of slapdash thinking that exaggerates the differences between them and explains those differences in terms of banal political calculations.”

Frist may very well have done some serious thinking. But it’s not evident from his speech. Eric Cohen and William Kristol, my fellow editors, and I have all pointed out some of the gaping holes in Frist’s argument. If Will wants to describe Frist’s critics’ thinking as “slapdash,” shouldn’t he he address some of their arguments?