I’m on the second floor of the Capitol, the Senate side, walking past the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist(R-Tn.)
Out walks actress Mary Tyler Moore, slim and wearing a pantsuit, holding hands with man I did not recognize.
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She’s being escorted to the elevator around the corner. She exits on the third floor and is ushered into the Senate Gallery, entering a door near the Senate Press Gallery. (She’s kind of press, right? Moore played Mary Richards, a news producer for WJM in Minneapolis back in the 1970s. Her breakthrough role was as Laura Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke Show.)
Moore had just finished meeting with Frist, a heart transplant surgeon, a few hours before the Senate was to vote on three stem cell research bills.
Republicans are split over stem cell research. Frist supports stem cell research. President Bush has threatened to issue his first veto if the bill dealing with expanding federal funding for stem cell research reaches his desk. Moore has been the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and met with Frist to help rally support.
The Senate spent most of Tuesday debating cellular biology and, as Frist said, ``the proper role of the federal government.’’
All three bills are expected to pass the Senate. The House already passed one of the bills in the package last summer. The House GOP leaders plan to allow a vote to override the president’s expected veto. There do not seem to be enough votes to over-ride an expected veto.
The bills, being debated at the same time, can be found at www.senate.gov S. 3504, S. 2754, and H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Bills.
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Lynn Sweet is a columnist and the Washington Bureau Chief for the 
religious fanatic, in the name of god will send this country into dark age. Who is going to pay for this mess? We, regular tax payers for those ignorant hypocritic's manic
Glad to the bill psst, I have had 5 aunts & uncles suffer & die from Ahlzimers desease, I am frightened it may hit me & my Family..
I like Mary Tyler Moore. She is a fine actress and has done much in the fight against diabettes. However I don't see where she really would have anything useful to add to the stem cell debate.
This is a debate of morallity v/s science, and so the voices of medical experts, biologists, ethics and phylosophy experts, and religious leaders may have valid arguements that should be considered in the debate. Hauling in someone whose major skill is in playing other people adds little to the debate. This is just another example of politicians fawning over some celebrity.
The man holding hands with Mary Tyler Moore in the US Capitol Buiilding was her husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine.
Lynn Sweet reply:
The source on this is a spokesman for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
This world is in the DARK AGE and it is not due to the "Religious Fanatics". People have no morals no compassion for human life or values. We all must die one day and if it is God's plan then your going with cancer, with diabetes with whatever it maybe. We are doomed a fate. Your choice is not to add years to your life by stealing it from others. Your choice is to pick between Heaven and Hell. Sure some are afraid...don't be afraid just be ready.