GOP leaders unlikely to pursue new avenues to keep Schiavo alive

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."

"It will also spell the end of the pro-life agenda."

What you fail to see is that the pro-life agenda is itself nothing but a dream. This is a pro-death society. We have Roe. We have this travesty going on in Florida.
The pro-life movement has gained NO victories in anything for 30 years, other than electing increasingly large numbers of Republicans.
We trusted the REPUBLICANS to do the job when they got the power.
Well, they got the power: 55 Senators, but now they appear to be welching on the job. Which means that all of this pro-life support for the Republicans over thirty years has itself proven to be the fool's errand. We are not the only reason Republicans are in power, of course, but without us, the Republicans would not be in power.

None of that matters.
Push has come to shove, and the Republicans are backing away from the Nuclear Option, the only way to change the courts. They are backing away from actually saving this woman. They are, simply, chosing to favor the other parts of their coalition, and after 30 years, to deprive the pro-lifers who have fought so hard for them absolutely EVERYTHING.

What is left?
What has the loyalty of the pro-lifers gotten us?
Name me ONE pro-life victory.
Partial birth abortion ban?
Struck down by the courts, as we knew it would be.
And the Republicans are CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSING not to alter the courts by applying the nuclear options, which is within their power to do.

You speak as though discouraged Christians who don't vote Republican will hurt the pro-life agenda. Actually, the pro-life agenda has no life in it at all other than a dream and a belief. Our laws are pro-death. We have won no victories, at all. If the Democrats swept back into power, things would not be any worse than they are. We ALREADY HAVE a liberal judiciary and abortion on demand until birth. And the Republicans are CHOOSING to not change that, by CHOOSING to not exercise the Nuclear Option, which is within their power to do.

We have already lost everything. We cannot lose MORE. There is no worse position than the status quo. If the Republicans don't pull their heads out and reverse their disastrous present course, the thing that will be clearest is that what we have lost is 30 years in a fool's errand, building up the Republicans to a majority, to have them betray us and change NOTHING when they finally got the power.

If this week turns out as it looks like it is going to, with a dead innocent woman from the Bush boys playing Pontius Pilate, and no conservative judiciary because the Republican Senate plays Judas, there is nothing left in the Republican party for a pro-lifer to vote for.
Why?
The GOP has the power, and won't use it.
We are still at zero.

Maybe if we had organized a Christian Life Party starting 30 years ago, instead of putting all of our eggs in the Republican basket, we would actually have accomplished SOMETHING.

As it is, we have nothing but broken hearts right now.
We have lost.

Now, I still think the Republicans could pull this out. They could recognize the truth of what people like me are saying about the utter demoralization and sense of betrayal in the Christian pro-life community. If the Bush boys don't save Terry Schiavo, they will be tainted, but the Republican Party could avoid a similar fate by going ahead and passing the Nuclear Option of the Senate, so we can finally get life-respecting judges on the bench who will prevent this sort of travesty from happening again.

That would be just great if that were all it was. We have been killing millions for years now. The notion of quality of life as justification has been growing wider in its' scope year by year. The pro life crowd has lost in every way it can except a few illusions and "Potemkin" victories. The election of a "Pro life" politician who then does nothing for the next 2-6 years except call on us for money and support. The Courts get worse and the definition of what is "legal" grows more outrageous. Partial Birth Abortion is a great example. I had been lead to the understanding that Roe v Wade would never prevent states from regulation abortions after the first Trimester, but here we are and much of this has happened under GOP Presidents and since 1994 a GOP Congress.

Will Congress do anything about Contempt of Congress? no.
Will Congress hold hearings on a run away court? no.
Cut their budget? no.
Reconfigure districts? no.

Most have ignored recent history. I'm not talking about things that happened in your parents or grandparents lifetime, I mean our adult lifetime. This is the only explanation for how far people have let their values drift.

I do not know where your line in the sand is. But you will have to keep redrawing that line or they will cross it faster than you can imagine. It is an avalanche of misery ahead because we have been half buried already.

"Are you advocating Jeb Bush break the law and go to jail?"

Think it through.
Yes, I am advocating that Jeb Bush break the law as the judiciary has asserted it, on the grounds that he, as the Chief Executive of the State of Florida, interprets the Constitutions of Florida and the US to require he protect a helpless citizen's rights while a further, independent investigation is conducted.

The Judiciary will indeed say that this breaks the law, and issue injunctions.
But again, I say, think this through.

The Judiciary CANNOT put Jeb Bush in jail for defying them. They can only issue orders, which the Executive Branch enforces. Jeb Bush is the head of the Executive Branch.

This is an impasse. Nobody goes to jail.
It is resolved in the State Legislature, by the impeachment process. Are there sufficient votes in both houses of the Florida Legislature to impeach and remove Jeb Bush from office for asserting an executive right of review and pardon in a case involving the potential death, through judicial error, of a citizen?
Almost certainly not.

So, Jeb Bush defies the Court. The Court has neither the power nor the police to arrest a sitting governor. The conflict is political. At worst there is an impeachment fight, which Bush wins, and establishes that, in Florida, the Executive Branch is co-equal in authority to the Judiciary.

You seem to think that Bush defying a court = Bush goes to jail. Abraham Lincoln repeatedly defied the Supreme Court of the US. The consequences of that are...impeachment, or nothing.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.