Family Schamily
Ok, everybody. It's time to flood the news outlets with the talking points that Linda Douglas reported last night. The senate is holding a prime time Saturday sideshow to vote on this Schiavo issue and the networks should be FORCED to report that the Republicans are pulling this garbage for political reasons. Via Oliver Willis and NoMoreMisterNiceBlog here is the report:
ABC News has obtained talking points circulated among Republican senators explaining why they should vote to intervene in the Schiavo case. Among them: "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited..." and "This is a great political issue... this is a tough issue for Democrats."
This circus is being produced purely for the benefit of the right to life zealot base of the Party for political reasons. They admit it. Here's Peggy Nooner:
Here's both a political and a public-relations reality: The Republican Party controls the Senate, the House and the White House. The Republicans are in charge. They have the power. If they can't save this woman's life, they will face a reckoning from a sizable portion of their own base. And they will of course deserve it.There is a passionate, highly motivated and sincere group of voters and activists who care deeply about whether Terri Schiavo is allowed to live.
This should concentrate their minds.
So should this: America is watching. As the deadline for removal of Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube approaches, the story has broken through as never before in the media.
[...
The supporters of Terri Schiavo's right to continue living have fought for her heroically, through the courts and through the legislatures. They're still fighting. They really mean it. And they have memories.
Nice little party you have here boys. It'd be a shame if something happened to it.
Gosh it seems like only yesterday that Peggy was complaining about anti-smoking laws because of their pernicious intrusion into people's liberty. I sure can't wait to hear another lecture on how Republicans just want the government out of our lives. I need for Peggy to tell me again how government can't solve the problem, it is the problem. I keep forgetting how that's supposed to work. Is it that the government is only interfering if it charges Republicans for the services that Republicans so willingly use? Is that the problem? Because it sure looks as if the only thing people like Peggy don't want the government to do is send them a bill. Other than that it's just fine if the Republicans use the strong arm of the law to step right into the living rooms, bedrooms and hospital rooms of American citizens because a "sizable portion of their ... base" doesn't approve of the difficult moral decisions that they make. What a very interesting view of limited government these people have. What a twisted, greed-soaked view of freedom.
On the other side of this debate, one would assume there is an equally well organized and passionate group of organizations deeply committed to removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. But that's not true. There's just about no one on the other side. Or rather there is one person, a disaffected husband who insists Terri once told him she didn't want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures.
I don't know why she thinks this, but it clearly isn't true. It may be that there isn't a group of blindered fetishists who have devoted their pathetic lives to interfering in the intimate personal lives of their fellow humans as the pro-life people have, but there are millions of people who have had to face these situations and who have strong opinions about it. Many, many of them have decided to let their loved one die a natural death rather than live as they would never have wanted to live --- with no mind. These decisions are faced every day all over the country and it is not, as Nooner suggests, that nobody cares. People care deeply and she may just be surprised how much people despise the sick openness with which Republicans are using this issue for political purposes.
This reminds me of another issue in which the Republicans were willing to flout all the known laws that really protect families in their zeal to pander to the radicals in their base. Little Elian. In that case they were more than willing to keep a little boy from his own father because they didn't approve of the father's politics. In this case they are flouting the very essence of what constitutes a family by insisting that they have the right to veto the wishes of both the patient and the patient's spouse.
The Schiavo case also shows that their braying about the sanctity of marriage is a load of rubbish. One of the things that gays want from the marriage contract is the right to make decisions for their spouse in case like this one. Clearly, those rights are only applicable even to straight people if Bill Frist and Randall Terry approve. Otherwise, they may actually enact an act of Congress to stop you --- especially if it's "a great political issue" that "excites their base." I guess the traditional view of marriage isn't so sacred after all, is it? And here I thought this stuff was handed down from God. Go figure.
Update: For those who would like a clear rundown of the medical aspects of this case Respectful of Otters has a full compendium of links and analysis.
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