Posted on 04/02/2005 9:25:17 AM PST by RedBloodedAmerican
"If Governor Bush wants to be the man that his brother is, he needs to step up to the plate like President Bush did when the United Nations told him not to go into Iraq," said Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue and an advocate for Terri Schiavo. "Be a man. Put politics aside."
Pardon me, but what would Mr. Terry have Jeb Bush – or, for that matter, his brother the president – do beyond what he has already done? Both men did everything within their legitimate powers to stop the judicial execution of Terri Schiavo. They were stopped by an out-of-control judiciary and constitutional limitations on their official duties.
In working with Congress to exercise its legislative authority in the case by transferring jurisdiction from the Florida courts to the federal judiciary, the president went out of his way to craft a solution to the gut-wrenching tragedy unfolding in Florida. He was stymied in his efforts to come down on the side of life, as he put it, by both the Florida and federal courts. Both he and the Congress found themselves facing a vexing question of state vs. federal rights.
Moreover, the federal courts given jurisdiction by Congress simply stepped aside and sided with the state courts, putting their stamp of approval on a judicial record shot through with the most egregious errors and omissions.
At that point no president subject to the Constitution had any authority to prevent the obscenity being perpetrated by Michael Schiavo with the enthusiastic backing of Judge George Greer and his judicial cronies. George Bush had run out of options.
There are those who would have had him apply the full power of the federal government, using armed force to wrest Terri from her executioners. Nothing would have delighted me more, but we live in a nation governed by the Constitution and there is nothing in that document that would permit such an action.
And had he so acted, the consequences would have been almost as politically explosive as President Lincoln's attempt to resupply the Fort Sumpter garrison, which started the shooting in a bloody war that would kill 600,000 Americans before it ended.
Florida's Governor Jeb Bush weighed in early on the controversy, seeking to protect Terri from her husband and all those right-to-die fanatics who had mounted an unholy crusade to kill Terri Schiavo and use her death to advance their cause. After the Legislature passed and the governor signed what came to be known as Terri's Law, the courts stepped in and quashed it as violative of the Florida constitution, and the matter was back to square one.
Faced with Judge Greer's order to cut off Terri's nourishment and hydration by removing her feeding tube – an order that was in reality a judicial death warrant – the governor sought to have the Legislature step in again and pass a law that would have saved Terri's life. He won the support of the Florida House but ran up against a stone wall in the Florida Senate. Despite the most vigorous lobbying, Jeb Bush was unable to move the Senate.
He then attempted to use his executive authority by having the state agency charged with protecting the disabled to take Terri into its custody and reconnect her life-giving feeding tube despite Judge Greer's prohibition against such an act. He went so far as to order state officials to seize Terri but found himself facing local police and sheriff's deputies who swore that they would resist. What was looming was a potential shooting war between local and state police.
Despite that real possibility, some of Terri's more belligerent supporters insist that Jeb Bush follow through and use force to free Terri. They ignore the possibilities inherent in such a confrontation between bodies of armed men.
According to those who know Jeb Bush, a deeply religious Roman Catholic, he is appalled by the spectacle of a court deliberately violating Terri's religious and civil rights and the ordeal to which she is being brutally subjected. In addition to the anguish he feels over Terri's ordeal, he is tortured by his inability to do anything to save her beyond praying and calling on the people to pray with him.
When the secular forces who targeted an innocent woman in pursuit of their immoral political agenda have gotten their wish and Terri is in a place where they can no longer reach and torture her, Jeb Bush will have an opportunity to see that the rampant corruption endemic in this case is vigorously investigated and those responsible for this atrocity are prosecuted to the full extent of the law they so wantonly abused.
That's when we need to hold his feet to the fire – not now, when he is powerless to do what he and so many of the rest of us so desperately wanted done.
He is not bound by a failed ruling of the Judiciary. He is bound by the Constitutions of the State of Florida and of the US. That is where he failed. Why haven't your read those documents so your could understand his responsibilities to act?
I have seen some pretty stupid stuff posted on the Terri threads but this one pretty much takes the cake..
So go ahead, since you are full of knowledge:
Detail out, step by step, exactly what Governor Bush should have done.
Educate yourself. Don't depend on others to do your work for you before you blather dizziness and masqurade it as informed opinion.
I didn't think you had an answer. None of you "it's Jeb's/George's fault" folks have been able to back up your accusations.
Those who blame Bush are simply foolish.
The subpeonas were bogus from the word go. Every memeber of congress that voted them up knew in advance that they were bluffing and there was no enforcing them. That was a given from the onset. The miscalculaton was that they really didn't expect their bluff to be called.
You really need to quit consulting Madam Cleo. You know but you don't know, and this seems logical to you?
Careful, you're on the verge of exposing one of many double standards that are at work here. This one being that the rules only apply to "them". There are those here who think the rules are ok to break as long as it's "us" breaking them.
Wonder how loud Machael would screem if a waitress refused to serve him food or water.
"Detail out, step by step, exactly what Governor Bush should have done"
and only got the reply
"Educate yourself"
they really missed their chance to shine. I in fact was asking to be educated by someone who appeared to have an answer or know what they were talking about. So far I have been unable to find anything to support the comments by others saying either Bush should have "saved Terri", and I don't know what they are referring to. Apparently I am not alone; they don't know either.
Oh what the heck. It's a waste of time to try to produce facts to the claims of others when they don't even know what supports thier ideas.
I haven't ever said it was Jeb's fault. The simple fact is, however, he is the chief executive in Florida and had the power to intervene and save Terri. He did not. In fact he did almost nothing. You can read the constitution as well as any of us and if you have followed this saga at all you know the avenues he could have taken to forcefully intervene using the constitutional powers accorded him. The blame for action lies clearly at Judge Greer's feet but the blame for inaction cannot be assigned to anyone but Jeb Bush. Waving your arms saying there is no proof he could do anything is a cop-out for your lack of honest review of the constitution of Florida in particular and of the US inclusive. You insist others provide proof of what he could have done while it is all the while in front of you. Why not confront the obvious and explain how he cound avoid his responsibilites under his constitution to enforce it's provisions to pretect Terri? Further discussion with those who defend the indefensible is a waste of energy. Have a nice day.
Jeb did all that he could short of wiping his a** with the Constitution, picking up a gun and killing a bunch of sheriffs at the hospice!
If certain mentally unstable whack-jobs object to what Jeb didn't do, it only makes him look better to sane Americans everywhere!
Many on the left would use the exact same words to justify the confiscation of firearms.
Article I, Section 8, "To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supereme Court;"
See Title 28 of the United States Code for laws made pursuant to that Constitutional Authority.
So, you don't know what he could or should have done, legally.
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