It’s unbelievable. Thank heaven the Bush administration’s got surrogates who are willing to speak out about the Kerry campaign’s ghoulish exploitation of Chrisopher Reeve’s death. Bill Frist had the courage to come right out and say it:

‘’I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve — I think it is shameful — in order to mislead the American people,” Frist said. ‘’We should be offering people hope…” Dr. Frist also had the guts to call John Edwards ‘’cruel” and ‘’crass” for bringing Reeves into play.

If there’s one thing Christopher Reeves would not have wanted, it would be his name being used to further the cause of his friend John Kerry or the cause of stem cell research.

I mean, sure, he frequently spoke out about Bush blocking stem cell research, saying, “I think we could have been much further along with scientific research than we actually are.” And yes, a couple of years ago he actually sued the Bush administration because he thought they were doing “irreparable harm” to the fight to produce new therapies. And yeah, he was John Kerry’s friend and called him to thank him for mentioning him and stem cell research just hours before his death, yes, sure, right.

But if Christopher Reeve were alive today and able to talk about his death a few days ago, I’m sure he’d agree with Bill Frist that his demise should not be exploited by his friends to further the cause that he’d worked tirelessly for during the last years of his life. He’d probably say something like, “Whoa there, guys - stem cell research is important and I was going to vote for John Kerry, but I just died, for crying out loud. It would be much more appropriate to use my death as a reason to discuss the three ‘Superman’ movies and the vastly underrated ‘The Muppets Go Hollywood.’ Those films - and not my relentless work to reverse the Bush administration’s policy and give hope to millions of people like me and their families - those should be my legacy. Please don’t exploit my death to advance the cause that I cared most about in the world. That would be crass.”

Remember - Reeve played Superman, and Superman fought for “truth, justice, and the American way.” Superman never worked to unseat an incumbent President. If Reeve were alive today, I think it’s fair to say that he’d endorse Bush for that reason alone. The Kerry camp should be ashamed.