Leadership Quote by Roger Wicker

Wicker’s line is a classic Washington move: deny the premise, shrink the argument, and force the listener onto your turf. By insisting “That is not the choice,” he’s not clarifying policy so much as re-litigating the frame of the debate. Stem cell research, especially in the mid-2000s fights over embryonic lines, was regularly presented as a moral binary: science versus sanctity, cures versus conscience. Wicker’s syntax tries to puncture that melodrama. The repetition functions like a procedural objection in court: sustained, move on.

The intent is to recast the controversy as a question of means, not ends. In other words: everyone wants medical breakthroughs; the real issue is which kind of stem cells, which funding streams, which ethical boundaries. That shift is strategically powerful because it turns opponents of embryonic research from “anti-science” into “pro-ethical science,” while casting supporters as people who are either impatient with safeguards or falsely addicted to a single path.

Subtext: the public has been sold a false dichotomy, and the speaker is the grown-up in the room. It’s also a defensive maneuver. If voters suspect you’re blocking lifesaving research, you’re in trouble; if you can argue you’re supporting research, just not that research, you keep the benefits of scientific optimism without inheriting the moral liability.

The line’s bluntness matters. It doesn’t offer evidence; it offers a reset button. That’s the point: control the question, and you control what counts as a reasonable answer.