OBLIGATORY JIHAD REFERENCE (via Kevin Whited):

When White House allure outshines everything else (CRAGG HINES, 5/17/05, Houston Chronicle

JIHADIST Republicans have Bill Frist exactly where they want him. Squirming.

The hard right says, "Jump!" And Frist, possibly after an unavailing twinge of conscience or two, asks the inevitable question: "How high?"

Take the Terri Schiavo case, in which Frist, a well-regarded heart surgeon before entering politics, took the exceptional step of pronouncing medically on the comatose woman's condition on the basis of a 4-year-old videotape.

Perhaps Frist's atoning ardor was dictated by his earlier support for federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, which is opposed by the theocratic right. Frist also worked last year against making the Republican platform even more restrictive on the stem-cell issue than President Bush's already anti-scientific edicts.

At best, the decision by Frist to champion the political exploitation of Schiavo was sad.

He does so inartfully, but Mr. Hines's formula--once you support killing embryos there's no rational basis for opposing killing the disabled--puts slipperyslopism in its starkest terms.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 18, 2005 11:05 AM