Posted on 03/24/2005 11:02:42 AM PST by Destro
Posted on Wed, Mar. 23, 2005
GOP leaders unlikely to pursue new avenues to keep Schiavo alive
BY JEFF ZELENY
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - President Bush and congressional leaders said Wednesday they had exhausted their options and could find no new political avenues to prolong the life of Terri Schiavo.
"Now, we'll watch the courts make its decisions," Bush said at a news conference in Texas. "But we looked at all options from the executive branch perspective."
The president's brevity on the subject - devoting only a few moments to an issue that had overshadowed other domestic issues for days - suggested Republicans had decided to not aggressively pursue other alternatives or try to change public opinion in the case of the severely brain-damaged woman.
A CBS News poll released Wednesday showed that 82 percent of Americans believe neither Congress nor the president should have intervened. And among people who describe themselves as evangelicals, more than two-thirds of respondents said Bush and lawmakers should stay out of the case.
As criticism mounted from some strict conservatives over the decision of fellow Republicans to inject Congress into a state's rights issue, Bush defended the legislation, saying the government "ought to err on the side of life, which we have."
Still, the White House said explicitly the administration had no intention of taking the Schiavo case any further.
"There really are not other legal options available to us," said spokesman Scott McClellan.
The House Government Reform Committee canceled a hearing, which had been hastily arranged as a means to stop Schiavo's feeding tube from being removed. While Republicans planned to file another appeal when the Schiavo case reached the Supreme Court, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said lawmakers would not become deeply involved.
For days, Republicans have dismissed suggestions that their intervention in the case was rooted in politics, particularly to mollify anti-abortion and other social conservative groups. "The legal and political issues may be complicated, but the moral ones are not," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said last weekend.
But an audiotape obtained by CNN on Wednesday, featuring a speech by DeLay to the Family Research Council, offered another view. He said the case could be used to rally conservatives.
"One thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo," DeLay said, "to elevate the visibility of what is going on in America."
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(Chicago Tribune correspondent John Biemer contributed to this report.)
They'll never get it.
Wasting your time.
Jeb Bush will not be tried in Criminal Court.
He would have to be impeached. Therefore the ultimate decision making lies with the people.
No moonwalk?
Last night it looked like a parade!
You watching online? Link please?
No......just glancing up once in a while to the TV. I'm trying to work and do this at the same time!
Now you know he's got his own "show" going in California!
DING DING DING DING...
That is the assumption. However, this neurologist disagrees
going one step further if that is true, then why not follow the Law Congress passed, give the case a De Novo review, and get to the correct Judgement, without Killing her Before that?
I am relieved to learn that you are not a clown. LOL
Judge Napolitano just said,
No matter who would be appointed guardian, the tube would stay out. Court order.
Per Terri's wishes.
Same here! LOL
Just got the Easter goodies packed up for the grandbabies. finally!
First of all, the woman is not starving to death. We can survive longer without food than without fluid. So she will die from dehydration.
Second, there are much larger issues here than just the fate of this one woman. You, and others with your passionate point of view, could make something constructive come out of the Schiavo tragedy if you'd look up and see the wider issues. The Schiavo case IS NOT UNIQUE in any way except for the epic family feud involved.
What is occurring in her case happens in one way or another every day. Whether or not we want to be intellectually honest and call removal of life support, feeding tubes, etc., by it's real name, it is what it is. Euthanasia.
We have no national euthanasia policy. You, and others like you who have invested so much emotion in the Schiavo case, could make her death meaningful. Instead of the silly, juvenile "I spit on it," response, you could turn your activism toward working for passage of a well-reasoned national law governing euthanasia, and providing for cases similar to the Shaivo case.
Short of that, this case has been so much sound and fury, signifying nothing.
One who contemplates the battles he fights.
We were at a crossroads. Down one path, we could invoke the nuclear option. Down the other path, we could waste our one opportunity to invoke the nuclear option AND make the whole issue too radioactive for the upcoming election cycle, all in the name of saving Terri Schiavo.
Unlike a lot of the "conservatives" who talk about a "fighting the culture war," I've actually fought in a war. And the first lesson of warfighting is maintenance of the objective. We failed to do that.
The pro-life agenda will not end, just as the anti-homosexual agenda will not end.
It will however, cease to have any impact in American politics if the pro-life community forms a single-issue pro-life party, which is the point I was making.
Our earthly life begins at conception, and ends at death. If it is cut short any time before this by another human being, it is murder.
OK...I guess I've just lost the right to engage in self-defense using lethal force.
We must choose to go down one of two roads: one leads to our success, one leads to our demise.
And we've chosen the latter.
I believe that if this woman dies, our demise will be imminent.
Thank you for your input.
I believe that if we fail to appoint conservative jusges, our demise is inevitable. Thanks for helping us blow the opportunity to do so.
To not believe life needs to be preserved is disgusting and totally uncalled for...
How many abortions are going to be performed because we wasted our shot at the nuclear option for this?
Napolitano is now all of a sudden an Oracle of Wisdom?
A De Novo review of the case might, just might lead to expert medical witnesses that can lay a case for the rehabilitation of Terri, making the Feeding tube Moot.
Remember, Treatments have been witheld, yet here se is, and Medical science advances fairly quickly possibly in this case.
Becsause to them a feeding tube has to have blinking lights like ina Holywood moo-vee.
He/she acknowledged you are human. That's an encouraging start to a meaningful dialog. :-)
Ah, the sweet light of reason. The hysterics may not see the truth of what you wrote, but the people who drive these issues into hysterics certainly will. If the agenda dies, their gravy train of donations and such will go away. So as soon as Schiavo dies, the people who make their living off whipping up hysteria will tamp things down a bit -- still use it in their fundraising, but with reduced heat.
OK, here's another number to reach jeb Bush's office: 850.488.5603. A live person just answered and was polite. PLEASE BE POLITE! We gain nothing by insulting Jeb Bush. Please call this number and calmly tell the person who answers that you are calling to implore Jeb Bush to take Terri into protective custody. Again, I just got through to a live person at 12:40pm Pac time.
It's way too late. Understand?
The courts don't give a rat's rear about De Novos.
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