This blog has frequently been critical of Dr. Leon Kass, the chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics.

This is simply a notice to all interested readers that a live interview of Dr. Kass by Morton Kondracke can be streamed here.

(HT Justin Case, who says he got this link from FightAging.org.)

ICE CREAM UPDATE: In reply to a question about his comments on dissection of cadavers, Dr. Kass brought up the "ice cream cone" remark. Because the ice cream remark was quoted in this blog (which generated considerable attention), I did my best to transcribe what Dr. Kass said:

I have a few embarrassing sentences that I have written in my life. In my eating book there's a sentence about licking ice cream cones in public....

[this was punctuated by laughter from Mr. Kondracke]

....which has been following me around. Had I thought about it I would have taken the sentence out. It was in context um, of interest.

I'll say this for Kass; at least he's no Kos.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Of course, neither Kass nor Kos could possibly compare with John Dean, who, when faced with his own words, stated that he never wrote them, and hadn't even read them!

AND MORE: I want to stress that had it not been for Glenn Reynolds' original link to the ice cream post, I seriously doubt that Dr. Kass would have felt obliged to bring it up in this public manner. (If only there'd been such a thing as blogging back in the 1970s!)

THE REAL ISSUE: Reflecting on the interview, what most concerns me about Dr. Kass right now is more along the lines of jurisdiction than merits. He seems to be conceding that, notwithstanding his philosophical problems with extending the human lifespan, the government should not now regulate the development of anti-aging technology. That sounds reasonable, even "nice." But what I'd like to see discussed is why the federal government should ever imagine that it has a right to get into such matters. Kass thinks they do -- and that's the problem. By being reasonable on the merits, but asserting jurisdiction over the subject matter, he mollifies his critics, and gets his foot (the Council's, and the federal government's much heavier foot) squarely in the door.

Echoes of Marbury v. Madison?

UPDATE: Reason at Fight Aging! links to the transcript of the Kass interview, and offers some astute observations:

Kass would - if he personally had the power - cheerfully ban research and medicine that extended the healthy life span. There was no talk of the millions of avoidable, preventable deaths that would result from the enforcement of such a policy, however. I think that this is a problem both here and in the wider conversation over bioethics, stem cell medicine, therapeutic cloning and healthy life extension. People talk about restricting research and banning fields of medicine, their conversations untouched by the terrible human costs of the policies under discussion.

And Stephen Gordon shares his thoughts about Kass -- "mystic and modern alchemist."

MORE: Chris Mooney read the Kass interview, and was astounded to learn that notwithstanding his previous refusal, Dr. Kass apparently now welcomes an interview with Mr. Mooney:

If Mr. Mooney, with whom I have never had a conversation, would like to read the essay more carefully and come in some time and have a conversation, I would be delighted to try to instruct him.

That sounds like an invitation for an interview, no? I'll be contacting the President's Council on Bioethics shortly to follow up.

A quick point here, though: Kass is right that he's "never had a conversation with me." But before publishing the American Prospect piece in question, I did seek out an interview with Kass, only to learn that he wasn't giving any. As I wrote at the time, "Kass was contacted by the Prospect but isn't granting interviews." So, Kass isn't being quite fair--he was given the chance to have his responses included in my article.