I think that people who could have averted the wrenching melodrama of the last week failed to have the wisdom to see how hard it would be to watch. Among others, that includes the lawmakers of Florida and, curiously, the people of Pinellas county that relected judge Greer in November. All of the state judges in Florida are elected, and he was reelected, even though this had been played out locally and in the state for years. It is really hard to believe that these people would be so locked into their positions that they would allow this controversy to be televised round the world.
I posted elsewhere that I don't think they believed it would last this long. I think that they thought she'd slip away after only a few days. When Easter came along, people were beginning to panic that she might die on Sunday and fulfill all sorts of parallel destinies. When Easter passed, the discussion moved onto how her stamina was an expression of a will to live, and the morphine that she was given flew in the face of claims of euphoria and peaceful, painless death.
-PJ