Posted on 03/24/2006 2:33:29 PM PST by topher
Michael Schiavo Caught in Serious Distortion of Truth on NBC Interview
By John-Henry Westen
CLEARWATER, FLA., March 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Michael Schiavo, who ordered doctors to withhold food and water from his severely disabled wife Terri until she died, and his current wife Jodi were interviewed by NBC's Matt Lauer. Those exclusive interviews based on Schiavo's upcoming book "Terri: The Truth," are to be broadcast on "Dateline," Sunday, March 26 at 7 p.m.. Ironically, despite claiming to speak about 'the truth' concerning Terri, NBC's Lauer catches Schiavo in a serious distortion of truth as the interview begins.
In the interview, Michael responds to Lauer asking why he would not just divorce Terri - since he was already living with another woman with whom he had fathered children - leaving Terri with her own parents who were begging to be allowed to care for her. Michael answered, "When you sit in a courtroom and you hear her father say I'll cut her arms and her legs off, just to keep her alive, why would I want to put their daughter back in their care if he's gonna (sic) do that to her."
At this point Lauer interjects to say, "Let's make sure we understand that statement," with Schiavo trying to cut him off all the while, he adds, "I think the statement was, if she were to develop gangrene, and had to have limbs amputated, he would do that and okay that as long as he could still have her alive. That's a little different than the way you . . ." At this point Schiavo, who had been interrupting Lauer the whole way through his clarification interrupts definitively cutting off Lauer and changing the subject.
The interview is one sided, in that it presents only Michael's point of view and ends with Michael relating through his tears his last moments with Terri, going so far as to say, "She's up there praising me right now... and saying thank you."
Lauer notes that the book is not about honouring Terri, but about settling some scores. To which Schiavo responds, "Oh yes it does."
At another point in the interview, Lauer asks, "People have often asked. Michael why didn't you divorce Terri, you were living with Jodi." Schiavo replies, "Why do I have to divorce Terri? Terri wasn't like a football- an inanimate object you pass back and forth. She was my wife. You mean because your wife gets sick, do you give her back?"
Asked about his decision to remove Terri's feeding tube despite the pleas of Americans, groups from around the world and even the Vatican, Schiavo said, "Yeah, well I guess when it all boiled down, I couldn't understand why these people were so passionate about my life... People are allowed to die every day. Feeding tubes are removed every day."
Schiavo will appear live on "Today," Monday, March 27, and with Jodi on Tuesday, March 28.
To see a preview video excerpt of the interview go here and click on the 'launch' button;
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11943750/
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage: Terri Schiavo's Husband Re-Married in Catholic Church http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jan/06012306.html
Ten Year Old Arrested for Giving Food to Terri Schiavo Apologizes
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/05083103.html
Given the way Michael was "caring" for Terri, any agreement that Terri could be put down if she developed gangrene would have been taken as an invitation for Michael to see that she did so.
MS is a filthy, lying murderer. If he reckons he's unhappy now, he should wait until he has to face his Creator!
bttt!
Michael's authority rested solely upon his legal guardianship. Although spouses have legal priority when seeking guardianship, they are required to meet certain requirements and abide by certain conditions to maintain guardianship. If a guardian fails to meet the requirements or acts contrary to the necessary conditions, the guardianship is to be voided and a new gaurdian assigned.
Michael's violations of the guardianship requirements are too numerous for me to list from memory. His openly-stated intention to marry a woman by whom he fathered to children, however, should have been sufficient to void his guardianship as soon as he tried to have his wife killed. Although it is legal for people to be guardians in the presence of potential conflicts of intrest, guardianship is to be terminated if guardians put their own interests ahead of their wards'. Michael had a clear craven personal interest in his wife's death. His claim that his actions were motivated by a love for Terri rather than his own obvious craven interests would be laughably absurd were not Judge Greer unwilling to hear any challenge to it.
Indeed, it's remarkable how Judge Greer was always too busy to hear challenges to Michael's guardianship in timely fashion, and never seemed to object when Michael didn't even bother to show up at such hearings when they finally came around, and yet he somehow always seemed to find time to hear Michael's motions to kill Terri.
Of course, ideally one would vote Judge Greer out of office, but that's somewhat difficult when state laws make it essentially impossible for any competitors to campaign (the state laws would also seem to have forbid Judge Greer from campaigning, except that he openly flouted them and nothing happened). It's rather hard to unseat an incumbent when he's allowed to campaign and his competitors aren't.
Then I asked you,"How many courts was that who ruled on Michael's stewardship of Terri?"
You didn't answer my question, but I'll give you a hint, it was more than zero and less than two who ruled on Michael's "stewardship" of Terri. Yes, Terri's parents tried to gain guardianship of Terri (93,94?), which at the time, was ruled to remain in favor of Michael. That was years ago.
More recently, Terri's brother and sister hoped to get guardianship of her, and that case was continually put on the back burner by Judge Greer.
Don't make it sound like multiple courts heard that case, because only one heard it, and it was before Michael petitioned the court to remove Terri's gastric tube.
I don't know who you're thinking of that thinks/thought Terri should have been made a ward of the court.
The parents filed a challenge to Michael's guardianship in September 2002, IIRC. Judge Greer scheduled a hearing on the matter to occur a few weeks after Terri was supposed to be dead. When Terri didn't die as scheduled, Judge Greer granted Michael a continuance. When the new hearing date rolled around, Michael didn't show up. Judge Greer claimed he couldn't hold Michael in contempt because he hadn't given Michael proper written notice of the new date. IIRC, there was another continuance, and Greer again somehow managed to give Michael the proper written notice.
The problem wasn't that Michael won the guardianship challenge in court--if that were the case, the Schindlers might have been able to appeal. The uncontroverted facts in the case are such that they might have had a better shot there than on their other appeals (the other appeals involved disputes of fact; appeals courts are very reluctant to question trial courts' factual judgements; here, there were enough undisputed facts to shift the question to one of legal judgement). Unfortunately, Judge Greer simply refused to bring the case to trial in any timely fashion. As a practical matter, while it's possible to appeal a loss, there's no way to appeal a continuance.
Judge Greer is an amazing piece of work. In responding to one of the parents' 2005 motions, Judge Greer not only commented that the proper venue for raising the issues therein was a guardianship hearing, but that the parents should have been aware of that since they had filed for such a hearing. Never mind that the reason for their motion was Judge Greer's failure to conduct the required hearing in timely fashion.
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
"Michael Schiavo Caught in Serious Distortion of Truth on NBC Interview"
The Culture of Death will do ANYTHING to advance their evil agenda.
To be included in or removed from the MORAL ABSOLUTES PINGLIST, please FreepMail wagglebee.
Even fewer courts than that made any such rulings after Michael declared Jodi his "fianceée", even though Schindlers filed a guardianship challenge in 2002.
The Bushes know a LOT of people. They are very cordial people. Just because they know people and are friendly with people doesn't mean they are in cahoots with every person tied to that person's family. I'm sorry, but this sounds like the start of any typical moonbat tin-foil conspiracy story. I'm can just feel that next you are going to tell me that Haliburton or the Carlyle Group is somehow involved.
You're absolutely right on that point, supercat! Michael was never even deposed. He was a no-show at least three times that I know of. Greer didn't seem to find any fault in him for that, but someone like you or me would probably be held in contempt if we did that to a judge's orders. I wonder, who paid the recorder's fees for those days that depositions were scheduled but not taken? The taxpayers, right? I guess they got hosed on each of those occasions.
In 2005, the family of Terri Schiavo said no more federal appeals on behalf of the brain-damaged Florida woman were planned after a judge rejected an emergency plea to have her feeding tube reinserted. The battle had reached the White House and the U.S. Supreme Court.
8mm
Terri after the attack and before bioethicking.
Open Letter to Michael Schiavo (Fr Pavone to read to worldwide audience tomorrow morning)
8mm
Open Letter to Michael Schiavo
3/25/2006
WASHINGTON, March 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, and an eyewitness to Terri Schiavo's final hours, released the following open letter to Michael Schiavo tonight. Fr. Pavone will read it to a worldwide audience on an internationally broadcast religious service on Sunday morning, March 26:
A year ago this week, I stood by the bedside of the woman you married and promised to love in good times and bad, in sickness and health. She was enduring a very bad time, because she hadn't been given food or drink in nearly two weeks. And you were the one insisting that she continue to be deprived of food and water, right up to her death. I watched her face for hours on end, right up to moments before her last breath. Her death was not peaceful, nor was it beautiful. If you saw her too, and noticed what her eyes were doing, you know that to describe her last agony as peaceful is a lie.
This week, tens of millions of Americans will remember those agonizing days last year, and will scratch their heads trying to figure out why you didn't simply let Terri's mom, dad, and siblings take care of her, as they were willing to do. They offered you, again and again, the option to simply let them care for Terri, without asking anything of you. But you refused and continued to insist that Terri's feeding be stopped. She had no terminal illness. She was simply a disabled woman who needed extra care that you weren't willing to give.
I speak to you today on behalf of the tens of millions of Americans who still wonder why. I speak to you today to express their anger, their dismay, their outraged astonishment at your behavior in the midst of this tragedy. Most people will wonder about these questions in silence, but as one of only a few people who were eyewitnesses to Terri's dehydration, I have to speak.
I have spoken to you before, not in person, but through mass media. Before Terri's feeding tube was removed for the last time, I appealed to you with respect, asking you not to continue on the road you were pursuing, urging you to reconsider your decisions, in the light of the damage you were doing. I invited you to talk. But you did not respond.
Then, after Terri died, I called her death a killing, and I called you a murderer because you knew -- as we all did -- that ceasing to feed Terri would kill her. We watched, but you had the power to save her. Her life was in your hands, but you threw it away, with the willing cooperation of attorneys and judges who were as heartless as you were. Some have demanded that I apologize to you for calling you a murderer. Not only will I not apologize, I will repeat it again. Your decision to have Terri dehydrated to death was a decision to kill her. It doesn't matter if Judge Greer said it was legal. No judge, no court, no power on earth can legitimize what you did. It makes no difference if what you did was legal in the eyes of men; it was murder in the eyes of God and of millions of your fellow Americans and countless more around the world. You are the one who owes all of us an apology.
Your actions offend us. Not only have you killed Terri and deeply wounded her family, but you have disgraced our nation, betrayed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and undermined the principles that hold us together as a civilized society. You have offended those who struggle on a daily basis to care for loved ones who are dying, and who sometimes have to make the very legitimate decision to discontinue futile treatment. You have offended them by trying to confuse Terri's circumstances with theirs. Terri's case was not one of judging treatment to be worthless -- which is sometimes the case; rather, it was about judging a life to be worthless, which is never the case.
You have made your mark on history, but sadly, it is an ugly stain. In the name of millions around the world, I call on you today to embrace a life of repentance, and to ask forgiveness from the Lord, who holds the lives of each of us in His hands.
-- Fr. Frank Pavone
The ACLU helped Michael Schiavo at his counsel table. True conservatives would not cheerlead for any project that involved an alliance between the aclu, the Atheists of Florida, the Fla Right to Die Assn. with REPUBLICANS and the likes of Howard Dean to bump off Terri. Oh and Joe Redner, Tampa's strip joint king of Tampa. Even Redner, an atheist joined the party. He attended the first federal court hrg before Judge Whittemore (they are bosom buddies).
A lady in a wheelchair was denied admittance to that hearing but Joe Redner, a real bottom dweller/atheist had a vip seat thanks to pal Judge James Whittemore. One can only wonder if Whittemore is an atheist or gay like Joe Redner.
Whittemore's in this jpeg in black and white. He defied congress and the potus but they knew he would.
----- Original Message -----
Our family will release a book on March 28th titled “A Life That Matters.” The book was written by our family honoring Terri. In the book, we reveal information about Terri when she was a youngster through adulthood. We tried to share with you an inside look at Terri’s personality, how kind she was and how she touched the hearts of everyone that knew her.
We believe the book is an eye opener. It deals with Terri’s tragic collapse, the suffering she incurred at the hands of her husband and explicit details demonstrating how the court manipulated the justice system, solely for the purpose of ending Terri’s life. We also give everyone insight to the events that were transacting behind the scene as we attempted to save Terri from her horrible fate.
I've listed below the media appearances we have scheduled for next week. (NOT POSTED HERE) If you get a chance, tune in.
Regards,
Bob Schindler Sr.
BOOK TITLE: A Life That Matters
So is Nicole Simpson.
You are assuming Terri wanted to be starved to death?
Me, too. Some lazy, shallow thinkers need to be shaken up.
I guess he isn't sleepwalking like some of the "Terri wanted to starve" crowd is.
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