Is it news to change your stand on stem cells?

I guess if you’re the surgeon general, you can make a case for it being news. But I gotta wonder if the reporters don’t get tired of writing about how some well-known so-and-so said one thing publicly and then suddenly appears to have changed his-or-her position on some important issue. Surgeon Frist changes his stance in the stem cell fight, writes Ceci Connelly in the Washington Post.

In the stem cell debate, nobody who has any designs on keeping a) a political position, b) a moral position “above the fray,” or c) a position that wants/needs government or other funding, can afford to come out in favor of using embryonic stem cells–no matter what they really think.

Sure makes for dull and repetitive reporting.