Here’s what President Bush said in vetoing a bill that would expand government-funded stem cell research: “This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others.”

In attendance for this veto were several people who began (preceded?) life when in vitro fertilization patients gave excess frozen embryos to other couples. Such “adoptions” are relatively rare. Most embryos in storage are eventually disposed of or turned over to researchers. The choice is up to fertility clinic patients. An estimated 500,000 human embryos are currently being stored.

Why doesn’t this pro-choice/anti-life calculus bother the president and his pro-life supporters? Why aren’t pickets forming outside fertility clinics? And, finally, why has the president publicly supported fertility treatments when he knows they involve “the taking of innocent human life”?

A question for investigators. In explaining why he claimed Otto Zehm lunged at Officer Karl Thompson, Acting Police Chief Jim Nicks said, “That’s the information provided to me at the scene based on the observations of the witnesses and officers.”

The only officer who could have firsthand knowledge of that would be Thompson, who was alone when he encountered Zehm at the convenience store on March 18. But in his interview with Detective Terry Ferguson four days later, Thompson never claims that Zehm lunged at him.

So where did that story come from?

Dig deep. Before she was named Spokane police chief, I asked Anne E. Kirkpatrick what she thought of fees charged to people requesting public records, whether it’s a person needing a theft or traffic accident report or a journalist reporting a story. She was enthusiastic and unapologetic about charging as much as the law allows because of budget constraints.

But what the law allows was the subject of controversy in March 2005, when the Spokane Police Department decided it would charge a new redaction fee, which was apparently unprecedented in the state. The plan was to charge a flat $1.50 for any record where a city employee had to black out personal information and an additional 50 cents for each page that had redactions.

That meant that theft records and other information that victims needed for insurance purposes would no longer be free. The department backed off the new fee when press reports challenged its legality. However, the department continues to charge $12 for traffic accident reports, even after the state attorney general’s office determined that such documents should be treated like other police records.

It’s been said that Kirkpatrick is a “good fit” for the department. Let’s hope in this respect she is not.

Everybody’s an editor. Two rules can be gleaned from readers who complain about the media being critical of others without “walking in their shoes”:

Rule No. 1: If you’ve never been a mayor, police officer, firefighter, teacher, coach, athlete, business owner, etc., you are in no position to evaluate their actions.

Rule No. 2: If you’ve never been a journalist, Rule No. 1 does not apply.