The Murder of Terri Schiavo

By the time you read this, Terri Schiavo may well be dead. At the time I’m writing this, even most of us who wanted her to live will be relieved that her pain and suffering will be over.

The other good thing about her final release will be that we will no longer have to listen to the so-called experts insist that starvation and dehydration not only aren’t painful in the extreme, but actually bring on a state of bliss, almost rapture. These are the same people, I’m willing to wager, who’d throw a hissy fit if you deprived them of a single meal – let alone a few dozen!

All along, I have been mystified by a couple of things. The first of these is why the courts have been so anxious to oblige Michael Schiavo, a man who, rather than get a civil divorce or a Catholic annulment from Terri, has opted to shack up with another woman and father two children out of wedlock.

The other matter I found it hard to fathom was the zeal exhibited by Michael’s partisans in their campaign to have Terri Schiavo killed. I understood the passion of those on my side of the issue. We saw this woman being slowly starved to death, while the four people who loved her the most and wished to care for her had to stand by helplessly, stymied by a single Florida judge and a vile legal system that refused to overrule the petty tyrant.

Michael Schiavo’s actions and statements have been so bizarre that they have quite naturally led many people to question his motives. But what about the millions of people who have lined up behind him? What did they have to gain? Those were some of the very people who hold candlelight vigils when Florida gives serial killers painless lethal injections, and who weep copious tears when mountain lions are shot, and who worry about the quality of life of insects on the endangered species list.

Why were so many people who had never even heard of Marbury vs. Madison suddenly carrying on about the sanctity of states’ rights as if they were constitutional Talmudists? This same crowd had no objection to the federal government’s getting involved with abortion when the Roe vs. Wade decision went their way, although, abortion, however you may feel about it, is clearly a states’ rights issue. And I know they certainly didn’t mind it when the feds subjected the cops involved in the Rodney King incident to double jeopardy after the Simi Valley jury acquitted all four defendants.

The answer to these mysteries, I’m now convinced, is that those who most vociferously objected to Terri Schiavo’s murder were those on the religious right. For those on the left, that was reason enough to sentence the woman to a slow, torturous death.

Because leftists have no moral or religious convictions, but merely a political agenda, there is no consistency to their positions. For example, they never once brought up the ultimate authority of the U.N. when President Clinton sent American troops into Somalia and Kosovo, but suddenly carried on as if they were all getting their cut of the oil-for-food payoffs once President Bush was calling the shots.

Clinton announced that Social Security was in big trouble and that something drastic needed to be done, and all the Democrats on Capitol Hill chimed in like a Greek chorus. But, as we all know, they did nothing. Now, when Bush says that Social Security is in big trouble and that something drastic needs to be done, the same folks insist that Social Security is as sound as a bell. Couldn’t be healthier!

If it had been Clinton who had invaded Iraq, the liberals, led by George Soros, would have passed the hat and erected a statue in his honor on the site where Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled.

The reason those on the left hate Bush even more than they did Nixon isn’t because he’s a cowboy or because the French don’t care for him, but because he has spoken so sincerely about his faith. The left understands it when Democratic presidential candidates show up at every black Baptist church in America. That’s okay. That’s just good, old-fashioned, politics. They only find church attendance reprehensible when, God forbid, it’s for religious reasons.

Those on the left have no moral center. They merely have a knee-jerk opposition to everything that the religiously devout, so long as they’re not Muslims or voodooists, hold dear.

If, tomorrow, conservative Christians came out in favor of absolute gun control, teenage abortions without parental consent, gay marriages, and drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens, liberals would either have to automatically switch sides, or, more likely, simply retire to a quiet room while their heads exploded.

About the Writer: Burt Prelutsky is a humorist, movie reviewer, writer for television series and movies, and author of the new book, "Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco." His website is at http://burtprelutsky.com.

First time I've (almost) laughed this week. He's right.

This whole thing makes me ill. I've been very openly outraged at work this week. And I have had conservatives come up to me in my office and ask me why I wouldn't want Terri to be "released from her prison", or ask if I'd want to be "kept as a vegetable". Conservatives. One was even MORE conservative than I, and that's tough. All holler and yell about the evils of the pro-abortion movement. I say with certainty, all three would thrill to see Roe v. Wade overturned. The ONE thing they had in common--they had either fallen away from their respective faiths (in these cases a Catholic and a methodist), or were agnostic. Three "good conservatives" who gave not a whit about the march of the Brave New World, instead worrying and wringing their hands about how "Republicans just handed the liberals the election" with the emergency intervention in Congress. I should be worried about the political fallout of this, they all said. As if the liberals could DARE raise the issue of Federalism. I doubt they can spell it. Then again, I doubt they can spell "hypocrisy", either. I do dare them to TRY.

I'm not worried about political fallout. Really. There will be far more conservative fallout over the President's immigration plan than this. And I don't feel I've abandoned states rights defending keeping a disabled woman alive. Not a bit. My conservative conscience is intact. I'm only worried that this country has turned a corner and traveled so far down one dangerous road, we cannot turn back. God (yes GOD), help us all to undo what we've done.

How's this for liberal claptrap? I just saw it. Utterly infuriating, but it will show you how bloodless, careless..........and I mean CARE - LESS.....the liberal media machine is. While Terri was fighting for her life, this is what liberal pundits were writing!

Frist and DeLay's trap has another catch

(3/24/2005)

By Joseph Dolman, Newsday

At the moment, Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas and Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee must feel like geniuses. The Republican brain-trust has managed to trot out a weapon in the culture wars that leaves the sad-sack Democrats thoroughly baffled. While half of me admires the creative deviousness of the trick, the other half is repulsed.

By daring to play tug-of-war with Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, the GOP has promised to turn life into a living hell for some of the more thoughtful Democrats on the planet.

The Democrats' mission now is to find an effective way to fight back - before they get caught in new and still more outrageous traps. For all the evil genius of Frist and DeLay, I think there might be a way ultimately to beat their cynical tactics.

That's because Congress' escapade last weekend will prove disastrous.

Never mind that the GOP now appears to endorse as a matter of policy government meddling in a family's private matters. And never mind the wacky spectacle of our whole elected government hurrying back to Washington to vote on a much-litigated medical issue that affects one - and only one - unfortunate Florida woman.

At bottom this episode was about something else. It was a sop to the religious right. It was meant to showcase the awe that Republicans supposedly harbor deep within their hearts for a "culture of life."

The congressional maneuver left Democrats with one of two choices. They could go along with the show like a roomful of sullen hostages. (Almost half of them did just that when the House voted early Monday morning.) Or they could take the route of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and inveigh with eloquence (and futility) against Congress' intrusion into Schiavo's case.

There's just one catch here. It just so happens that Nadler represents Manhattan's Upper West Side - a swath of ancient liberalism that has somehow survived the ruins of time like the contents of Tutankhamen's tomb. No 2006 challenger is likely to make Nadler explain why he voted for a "culture of death" over a "culture of life."

But other Democrats who voted against DeLay and Frist won't be so lucky. As Frist and DeLay well know, the complex answers to questions like this are impossible to address in a sound bite. All their guy has to do is say that he's for life while the other guy must fight his way out of a swamp: What is life? What is death? When is it right to pull out feeding tubes? Long story short: Gotcha! At least that's one story.

I think it's also possible that Frist and DeLay have seriously misread their Red State base. For one thing, the pollsters and political scientists I know say the Schiavo case is unusual. Even in the South, voters could ultimately resent the intrusion of zealots into family affairs.

"The issue is a risky one," says Utica-based pollster John Zogby. "Who emerges the winner?" Just seeing the matter debated makes most people cringe. And though the Schiavo case might rev the religious right into spasms of political fervor, I can't imagine it creating waves of excitement beyond that.

I base this notion in part on personal experience. I grew up in the piney woods of East Texas - where the political conservatism runs about as deep as the red-clay soil.

Yet in the Jacksonville Daily Progress of Cherokee County, my former home, last Sunday is an editorial that lambastes the Congress for the Schiavo mess.

"Government has no business legislating the relationship between a husband and wife," wrote managing editor Larry Krantz in an unsigned piece. He went on to say that the "right to death with dignity is something everyone should be afforded when that time comes. If anything, the state should protect that right, rather than forcing a family to stay in the present when it's clearly time for her husband and the families involved to move on."
Oh, yeah. There's also an ABC poll, out Monday, that shows Americans support the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube by a margin of 63 percent to 28 percent. Bottom line: I know it's tough, Democrats. But come out of your bunkers. You haven't lost this one yet.
(3/24/2005)

By Joseph Dolman, Newsday

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