By JAY AMBROSE, Scripps Howard News Service

President Obama has lifted federal funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, saying out of one side of his mouth that science would now rule the day while saying out of the other that he would make sure to stop human cloning.

For five years in the 1980s, I lived in El Paso, often crossing the Rio Grande to Juarez and always encountering charm and conviviality and, once, great hope.

Rush Limbaugh wants President Barack Obama to fail, he has said more than once, and liberal commentators are aghast, either because they haven't bothered to check out the context of his remarks or are hopelessly befogged by bias.

A couple of days after it was announced that Denver's Rocky Mountain News was calling it a day, a friend told me the paper had been working for several months on an investigative series that hadn't quite been finished yet, and I thought to myself, there is what you lose when a paper closes. There is the tragedy.

Barack Obama called for national confidence in his speech to Congress, and the exhortation was needed -- the best friend a recession has is fearfulness.
But as persuasive, refreshing and even dazzling as this remarkable president continues to be, the question remains whether we should have confidence in him, or more precisely, in his policies.

You read about someone like Bill Ayers, a bomb-throwing, wild-eyed radical thug who even in his mid-60s still comes across as self-righteous, someone who thinks himself better than the rest of us, and you look for clarity. Here it is.

So here's Patrick Leahy's great, grand idea -- let's establish a truth commission, dig up all the dirt we possibly can on the Bush administration and convert our marvelous tradition of cordial transitions of power to one of crucify the old regime.

It was a mystery that had remained unsolved throughout history, but diligent, masterful scientists have now finally figured out a likely way to cure the common cold, leaving another, difficult task for others. That's how to persuade the federal government to back off sufficiently to get new, effective cold drugs on the market.

Suppose, as seems a distinct possibility, that the sloppily crafted, spend-to-oblivion stimulus package does precious little near-term good while causing eventual runaway inflation, a teetering dollar, huge tax increases and overall diminution of American prosperity and power. Will Barack Obama pay a political price?

It's yuk it up time among the liberals because, you see, Republicans in Congress just don't get it about stimulus spending and how the money can be spent now, or years from now and on just about anything, and still do great good.