The ABC poll mentioned in this article was a push poll.

This morning, on the John Gambling show (WABC, NY), a caller asked why Terri had not received a PET scan. John dismissed him with a breezy statement "but over 20 courts have looked at this case and all the medical tests have been done".

Not so, if we can believe the various articles at NRO, where it is claimed that Terri received only a preliminary CAT scan. And Sen. Santorum (also on the Gambling show) said the definitive point in Congress's action was to force the federal courts to look at this case and accept new evidence, which none of the FL courts did in the past (they just passed along Judge Greer's prior rulings of fact).

I think we are watching one of those moments where political myths are born (like the 'killing' of young boys in the Bonus March riots, or all the endless lies about black disenfranchisement in 2000). None of us really knows the truth (except Michael Schiavo). But we know sleight-of-hand when we see it.

The politics of this issue are quite clear. Maybe, it is true that most Americans agree with me on the matter and that Terri Schiavo's life should be terminated peacefully and painlessly. However, what is abundantly clear is that for that part of the population for whom this is an important issue, for whom they will base their vote a decision on a candidate's position on the issue, that they support the use of extraordinary means to keep her alive.

"Vote for me because I wanted to starve her to death!" Who but a insular twit reporter could think this benefits a political campaigner. Watch for it: H. Clinton will opine that Terri should not be killed.

Bart:

Sustenance is not a heroic measure.

Bart:

Watch out for those damned myths.

Bart:

"The politics of this issue are quite clear."

What do you mean by that?

Peter B,

If your interest is finding where the votes are, they are on the side of those who would keep her alive. Those on the other side of the issue are generally more concerned with other issues, like tax reform or Social Security or the Iraq war.

The preamble to the poll question has been "fisked" elsewhere as loaded and inaccurate to boot (e.g., she is not in life support). Yet, I don't doubt that the current, fair and balanced poll could and would yield a smaller majority against congressional action: you start with the core anything-Bush supports is wrong (30% to 40%), add libertarians, add state rights absolutists, add the "there are bigger issues" conservatives, and you are at 50+% . Is this the best issue around which to rally the Democratic Party?

if hillary follows the clinton pattern, she will wait until terry is dead and then apologise for letting the republicans kill her.

It's amazing how many liberals seem to want Terri Schiavo dead just because the President wants her alive. Some dimwit had a sign abouut "medical choice"--if Terri Schiavo HAD a clear choice, if she CHOSE to stop her treatment, this whole business wouldn't be happening. Instead, a caretaker with potential conflicts of interest makes the call. Sick, sick, sick--Hillary might get involved, but not if it calls for action (she may talk a good game, but that's about it)

Bart:

With all due respect, who (what politicians) are you talking about and what issue can you think of that couldn't be described in that way by the ultra-cynical? C'mon, you are a bright guy and you know you are implying political exploitation, so who are you talking about? The President? Are you saying that Terri's supporters are akin to an organized, funded special interest group just because they are moved?

BTW, please note Barney Frank is using this issue to trumpet the cause of limited government and those who want her to die are screaming family values and the sanctity of marriage.

If this does prove politically damaging to the Republicans (and the many Democrats who are also aboard), I will never be prouder of them. For once they have shown the courage of their convictions, even as the MSM has made it clear they are on the side of death for Terri Schiavo.

The speed with which the GOP majority in both houses has dropped serious business or screwed up important matters like the budget, which is as larded with pork barrel nonsense and corporate welfare as ever, or failed to bring all of Bush's judicial nominees to a vote, or gone completely in the tank for the credit card lobby on bankruptcy reform to take up the trivial sideshow that is steroid use in baseball and the unfortunate case of Terri Schiavo is an exercise of cynicism so grotesque as to amaze even me.

Terri's supporters in Congress are trying to exploit her continued existence as a means of swindling the yokels, of playing to the cheap seats, of keeping the voters' minds of minor matters while maintaining business as usual. I wouldn't mind it so much if the Congress had campaigned for office on the basis of continuing business as usual, as I agree with Mencken that democracy is the system whereby the people get what they want and get it good and hard.

We were promised things would be different. However, the Congress has egregiously failed in any effort to reduce spending, reform the tax code, end the panoply of undeserved subsidies to farmers and lobbyist paymasters of all sorts, or initiate even the merest soupcon of reform of Social Security. Government continues to grow exponentially.

At the same time, those Solons on the Potomac have found enough time to give the credit card companies a means of extorting high interest rates from the ignorant and the profligate, to hold idiotic hearings on the truly insignificant problem of steroids in baseball and now to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case which has been handled in the Florida State Court system and can be handled with a right to appeal to the Supreme Court.

If there is one thing that really annoys me about elective government, it is the presence of this kind of tedious posturing. Give the people Terri Schiavo's husband's head on a platter, while allowing the credit card industry to pick their pockets, the IRS to gnaw on their bones and agribusiness to keep the prices of even the most basic foodstuffs artificially high. It's just disgusting.

bnart:

Who cares about that minor stuff when our national soul is at stake?

Phyrrus was a powerful man.

OJ,

If that's how you feel, don't come crying to me when the Feds, the IRS or the credit card companies use you like a frat boy uses an unsuspecting sheep.

Great slogan, Bart: "Kill Terri, fight Mastercard."

I'm not worried about the "Feds, the IRS or the credit card companies". They know that dead people aren't very good at coughing up what they owe.

I'm more concerned about in the near future being declared "surplus population" or "unfit to live" or a "Kulak" (or whatever euphemism they come up with) by the Death Cult that isn't willing to quietly commit suicide, but is determined to take as many non-believers along with it as possible, or the Jihadis who want to kill me because the only book they've read demands it. (That kid in Minn. yesterday sounds like another True Believer in the Death Cult, just doing is small part for the cause.)

bart:

We are never the sheep.

You may not think so but allowing credit card companies to charge leg-breaker interest rates while being essentially risk-exempt or allowing Federal stormtroopers the right to poke around your banking and financial records in a full body cavity search for cash seem pretty ovine to me.

stormtroopers? Do they swoop into the banks in black helicopters?

No, they wear this cool white high-tech armor, the only weakness of which is that it is completely ineffective against arrows shot by teddy bears.

Hyperbolic, perhaps. But if you think that a truly free people would allow themselves to be treated by the IRS they way the IRS gets away with treating people, then you are sadly and tragically mistaken. Our financial records are our private property and if I wouldn't print my bank statements and portfolio summary on the Web for public viewing, why should some clown from the IRS have the right to see it?

You do know of course that the burden of proof in Tax Court is on the taxpayer, not the Feds, don't you?

Not hyperbolic, idiotic. There's nothing private about your tax records, bank statements, etc. They're readily available.

Untrue. Federal law requires that I sign a waiver to allow my lender or a prospective employer to have access to them. The Feds do get access without our permission but that is the stuff of police states not a liberal democracy.

Spend a hundred dollars and there are plenty of companies who'll give you that info in five minutes.

Go get the door, it's the jackbooted thugs.

Not legally. Even read a credit card application. It has an express waiver allowing them to look at your books. That's OK with me, by choosing to apply with them, I choose to live by their rules.

You cannot legally run a credit report on someone without his permission.

Yet they're routine. You have no legitimate expectation that mere financial records will be private.