Andrew Sullivan points to an interesting article (behind a stinking paywall) about the stem cell funding bill and libertarianism. It sounds like a sensible solution. Bush is a lunatic, but his decision was the right result with the wrong intentions. The big press conference where he had children crawling around looking "beautiful" was just sickening and was a horrible, staged photo-op. Bush wants to make political capital out of a funding decision. The end result isn't a blow for science, it's a good result arrived at by accident. 
If you believe that stem cell research is a valuable thing, find a charity that supports said research and give them money. It's that simple. All the money that people waste on lobbyists and political posturing would be far better spent on the research itself. Here in the UK, there is an organisation called the Heart Cells Foundation which has been set up to do trials with adult stem cells to fight against heart disease. We are, of course, prisoners of the metacontext.
Bush's moral arguments are childish, irrational and populist. His photo-op was staged to make people think that using leftover embryonic stem cells was equivalent to using live babies. Following the same logic, you get "every sperm is sacred" and other such puritanical popery.
People on both "sides" of this debate don't seem to realise that it's an argument about funding, not some kind of evil megalomaniac trying to keep people in their wheelchairs vs. a benign holy leader upholding the moral values that define America - everyone wants to turn this in to a moral panic, but it's a far more simple moral rule - government shouldn't force people to pay for research. Funding should come from individuals, charities and private industry.
