March 22, 2005
WHEN THE LAST MOMENT WOULD BE THE LAST:
Life, Death and Cynical Grandstanding (Robert Scheer, March 22, 2005, LA Times)
I cannot remember a time when Congress and the president have acted with more egregious political opportunism and shameless trafficking in human misery than last weekend, leaping into the 15-year-long Terri Schiavo saga at the last possible moment as grandstanding defenders of the defenseless.
What remains of the Left if it objects to using government in defense of the defenseless? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 22, 2005 8:09 AM
And according to the Boston Globe, Congress was exploiting Terri, who is "a sad shell of a human being".
What has been a real eye-opener (gut-kicker)for me these past few days is how unresponsive mainstream opinion is to all the dark questions surrounding this story. We can all understand why many are troubled by the thought of endless life-support in hopeless circumstances and why they want to restrict it, but the fact that this guy is so obviously trying to dispose of his wife when he has effectively remarried (apparently he issued do-not-recusitate orders as soon as the lawsuit in which he swore to care for her for life was over), that there is no shortage of willing caregivers or money, that she is young, responsive and apparently not in distress should be ringing alarm bells all over, and it's not. It's as if people are just putting their head down and crashing the line with their hypothetical, abstract football.
Over at Roger L Simon's blog there is a guest essay on this by one Catherine Johnson (about five down). In the two hundred odd comments there is one posting an affidavit from one of Terri's nurses and another by a poster who claims to have actually been one of her nurses. If what they say is even half true, this is a complete abomination.
Here is someone articulate with his head on very straight.
Posted by: Peter B at March 22, 2005 8:50 AM"Egregious political opportunism"?
"Shameless trafficking in human misery"?
What glorious hyberbolic verbiage! What delightful shock and outrage! What awesome righteous indignation! One wishes he'd just go on and on and on.
(If I had any doubts before, I know what side I'm on after reading that one.)
Robert Scheer, like Michael Moore, has just got to be another Karl Rove plant. Can there be any other explanation?
Posted by: Barry Meislin at March 22, 2005 9:51 AMonce again the democrats miss an excellent opportunity to show off their new "found" values. funny how they look the same as their old values. but being heartlesws sacks of manure, they don't even recognize how badly they look, quotint their polls.
Posted by: cjm at March 22, 2005 9:59 AM"Life which is unworthy of life."--who's the Nazi now?
Now for the good news: another win-win situation for the good guys, almost as good as the Elian Gonzales matter.
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 22, 2005 10:12 AMSo how long do you think the Vatican is going to keep Pope John Paul II on life support?