Posted on 11/02/2006 5:23:50 AM PST by 8mmMauser
Republican gubernatorial front-runner Charlie Crist says he was perfectly clear in opposing governmental intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.
He spoke out loudly.
And he was silent.
Loudly silent.
The day after limping through a tough nationally televised debate, the Republican attorney general wanted to talk about his plans to slash taxes. Instead reporters questioned him about his debate assertion that, “Yes, I did’’ speak out against Congress trying to force the reinsertion of the severely brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube in 2005.
Crist did not publicly express his opposition to the Schiavo intervention until April 2006, more than a year after the Pinellas woman’s death. But he maintained on Tuesday that he forcefully expressed his opposition from the start.
“I spoke loudly,” Crist said in Tallahassee. “I think it’s important that when issues like that come up and you believe that government is the appropriate place for it that you act that out, and you walk the walk, and don’t just talk the talk.’’
The attorney general noted that his office “by not going to court and pushing the agenda on that issue, that was speaking out louder than anybody else did in Florida.”
This is one of many issues — from insurance reform to abortion and civil unions — where Crist has been accused of ambiguity or trying please all sides.
Contrary to his comments Tuesday, during the Republican gubernatorial primary in August he stressed to the weekly newspaper of the Florida Baptist Convention that his office helped the governor’s office with legal work to keep Schiavo alive, even though he personally had qualms.
“I don’t remember that, but I’ll check on it and see,” Crist said when asked about that interview with the Florida Baptist Witness.
Gov. Jeb Bush came to his would-be successor’s defense. “He spoke out to me,” Bush told reporters. Crist, however, said he never directly talked to Bush.
There are few issues in the political realm so black and white as the Terri Schiavo case. People either supported the state and federal government intervening to keep her alive or they didn’t.
But Crist is the second statewide candidate recently to face questions about how he acted during the Schiavo end-of-life controversies that erupted in 2003 in the Legislature and in 2005 in both the Legislature and Congress.
Democratic Attorney General candidate Walter “Skip” Campbell, a state senator from Broward County, has been on the defensive this week for having voted to keep Schiavo alive and later criticizing the governmental intervention. Crist’s involvement in the Schiavo case may be the only common ground between the Schindler family, Terri
Schiavo’s parents and siblings who fought to keep her alive, and her husband, Michael Schiavo, who insisted his wife did not want to be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state. Both sides have criticized Crist.
“When he said in that debate that he’s going to be a leader, my heart dropped. He’s not a leader, he’s a follower,’’ Michael Schiavo said Tuesday. “If he really wanted to stand up he would have said, 'No, this is wrong. The government should stay out of this.’ ... Charlie Crist did not say a word, he was nowhere to be found. He’s a coward.’’
Terri Schiavo’s father, Bob Schindler, wrote an essay in August accusing Crist of snubbing the family’s pleas for him to help their efforts. “Florida Atty. Gen. Charlie Crist let my daughter die. He had it within his authority to save her life, but he turned a blind eye to her suffering,’’ Schindler wrote.
The Florida Democratic Party issued a release saying Crist “lied” about his role in the Schiavo case, but at a brief campaign stop at Arco-Iris restaurant in Tampa on Tuesday, Davis would only say that Crist “misrepresented his position.”
“I was up fighting George Bush and the entire United States Congress, both political parties, and Charlie Crist was unwilling to take a position,” Davis said.
Davis, trailing in polls and campaign money, is hoping his debate performance Monday night will cut Crist’s advantages. No statewide viewership numbers were available Tuesday, but in the Tampa Bay area about 152,000 households tuned in — a ratings jump for that time slot on WFLA — and that doesn’t include those who watched on MSNBC.
- Tallahassee bureau chief Steve Bousquet and staff writer Alex Leary contributed to this report. Adam C. Smith can be reached at asmith@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8241.\
This public display of Big Government interference by Republicans will be noted by future historians as the beginning of the end.
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
“Yes, I did’’ speak out against Congress trying to force the reinsertion of the severely brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube in 2005."
Charlie Crist, pro-death by starvation.
What are you referring to, the Civil War?
I got the great pleasure of voting against Teddy Kennedy! Man, that felt good!
I believe there were two judges on the 11th circuit who dissented and thought they should do what Congress intended them to do. I know one was a Clinton appointee by the name of Wilson. He wrote an exellent opinion on it that I don't have at the moment.
Yes that was the case, but it did not need to be so. A little imagination can do wonders.
That makes sense. The Democrats voted with the Republicans on the Terri Schiavo issue. Remember?
Still hoping and praying Crist will lose because of his failure to help Terri.
Boy, I would like to meet the person who told Reagan to drop a bomb on Colonel Kadafi : )
I remember her being all right for awhile. I don't see how the Gibber could of foreseen how a little power could twist her mind.
If Crist loses, its cause he didn't show up with Bush yesterday.
Yes, Amos did note two or three dissenters up the chain who did their constitutional duty. Almost all of the judges, however, as he noted, made themselves accomplices to murder.
Are we being a teensy bit facetious? :-)
If you don't get it, I am sure I screwed that one up. Still looks okay to me though (subject to change without notice).
"I don't think anyone can accuse Charlie Crist of being a culture warrior," said Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres. "I think you'll see fewer missteps like the Terri Schiavo debacle when an extreme ideology took hold of the Legislature . . . You won't see the imperial governorship"
Floridians give Crist solid win
8mm
As the defense of innocents like Terri is our standard, the lefties carry the flag of her demise into their battles.
We persevere.
The following is boilerplate published before the election. Is it part of the new manifesto?
So, if you win power here, please don't assume it validates anything you've done. If you win, it's because of Mark Foley and Theresa Schiavo and Randy ''Duke'' Cunningham and Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush and Jack Abramoff and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Dick Cheney and Hurricane Katrina and 2,800 dead soldiers and because, as my mom used to say, enough is enough and too much stinks.
Heartfelt plea to potential new political power brokers
8mm
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