Now doesn't this look like paradise?
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.\
Now doesn't this look like paradise?
That's for sure. With two children, Michael knows he can cry a sob story to a jury for big money. Terri was just peanuts.
The votes that closed the "God Gap" in favor of Democrats might have had as much to do with Terri Schiavo as the Bush Administration's handling of Iraq.
"The problem with the religious right is that they've positioned themselves as knowing the mind of God and knowing what that means for public policy — which is theologically invalid," says Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics and executive director of EthicsDaily.com.
"The best example of it is the Terri Schiavo case, where the religious right was morally arrogant about the biological situation of Terri Schiavo. So the Republican Party rushed to pass a piece of legislation only to discover ... they were absolutely wrong about her physical and mental condition. The Terri Schiavo case may have very well been a pivotal point in public opinion about the religious right and the Republican Party ... (who) lost a lot of credibility."
On Religion: Live by the sword, die by the sword
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The gash in the hull of the Rethug's momentum then came down to the Terry Schiavo mess. America got a first-hand look at how lunatic these ****** (my editing) are, how they think, how they react, and what they have in mind for this nation. I felt America reel and collectively hold our stomachs for fear of vomiting.
So, did the fundies ruin the ballgame?
Um, Actually, I Coined That Word First!
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Across Canada, the story is repeated today of super religious Dick Armey and his defense of the right to die kill.
"Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo (right-to-die case) and same-sex marriage," said Armey, a devout Christian.
Republicans face quandary over bouncing back from election losses
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The "Kiss of Death" is the perfect description.
>Springfield, FL (LifeNews.com) -- After he successfully won a court order to kill Terri Schiavo via euthanasia, the disabled woman's former husband Michael pledged to take on pro-life advocates and formed a political action committee to defeat them. However, the candidates Michael campaigned for during the 2006 mid-term elections didn't fare very well.
In fact, every candidate Michael personally campaigned for during the election cycle went down to defeat.
Terri Schiavo's Former Husband Michael Campaigned for Losing Candidates
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Should extraordinary means be used to keep a dying person alive?
Monsignor James J. Mulligan, Northampton, director of programs for priestly life and ministry for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown, explained that there's no easy answer, as part of a panel discussing “The Final Journey” Tuesday at Riveredge, Greenfields.
Mulligan was joined by a professor, a rabbi and a Mennonite layman in presenting ethical, cultural and spiritual perspectives on dying to about 75 people, under the sponsorship of the Berks End of Life Care Coalition.
Snip...
And he warned against making “quality of life” the criterion, since it can be defined differently, “Don't assume that someone else's life is not worth living,” he asserted.
All the panelists were later asked about their position in the Terri Schiavo case.
All claimed they didn't have enough information to make a definitive choice “I don't trust what I read in the paper,” said Mulligan and all complained about the extraneous issues. But three came down on not ending her life.
Mulligan cited the husband's desire to get married, his failure to turn over custody to her parents, the judge's ruling that she could not be fed by other means.
“If I'm going to err on any side, it would be toward life,” said John Stoltzfus, a registered respiratory therapist from Lancaster County.
“I was on the side of life,” said Rabbi Yosef Lipsker of Shomrei Habrith Synagogue. “They caused her to die.”
End-of-life issues: no easy answers
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Terri Schiavo's Former Husband Michael Campaigned for Losing Candidates
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Nov. 9, 2006 - Until recently Lisa Greening didn’t know a stem cell from a jail cell. But earlier this year, the bookstore owner from University City, Mo., spotted a new hardback by her former U.S. senator, John Danforth, titled “Faith and Politics” in which he bemoans the influence of evangelical Christians on the GOP and the country. Greening, 36, went on to see Danforth speak and emerged incensed by what she considered the religious right’s distortions on the issue of embryonic stem-cell research. “The extreme right is going around scaring people that [scientists] are going to steal women’s embryos,” she says. “That’s preposterous.” So on Tuesday, she endured a tedious, two-hour line at her local polling station for two reasons: to cast a ballot for the Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill, who supports stem-cell research, and to vote in favor of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would protect such research.
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Fidel smiles. He is the Leader, the Glorious Leader, Der Fuehrer, the King, the Emperor, the Pharaoh, the head of the Communist Party of Cuba. He knows the liberals will lick his boots.
It haunts FR, as well...
He could sue the media for not telling the truth about him because that enabled his homicidal tendencies.
If that doesn't work, he could remember that Jodi was bulimic.
The operational definition of a "bioethicist" is someone who makes a living by arguing for the death of just about anyone that some interested party wants to kill.
Now, now. We must observe our moral nuances and distinctions. Bioethicists simply DO NOT advise that the patient must be snuffed UNTIL they say (preferably with a reporter listening), "This is a tragedy for the whole family, but..."
We need to be kept aware of this creature and his backers. He is not doing these evil things alone.
Schiavo is one of many who are handled by this outfit:
http://www.novembergroup.net/aboutus.html
I'd call it a snug fit. The ideas and platform of the right-to-die movement are based on a godless view of life. Without God, there are no higher values, no moral rules, only pleasure and pain. Without a Hell, Michael Schiavo and George Greer are emboldened to think they have gotten away with a very clever murder.
Here's a taste of the politics
Charlie Crist for vice president?
No one is ready to go that far yet. But as Gov. Jeb Bush slips into the political shadows, Crist's impressive victory on a day when Republicans lost power on Capitol Hill and in six governor mansions has some Republicans saying Crist will be a major player on the national stage.
"I'm convinced that with all the qualities that he brings that he will be a national leader in the Republican Party," said Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a likely 2008 presidential candidate. "We've seen recently that those public servants and elected officials who are independent and take positions that they believe in are those that the voters reward."
GOP sees Crist as bright hope at gloomy time
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