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.\
At the same time, Dent has tried to sidestep the unpopularity of President Bush, highlighting the issues where he has differed, including his support for stem cell research; his opposition to political interference when comatose Florida woman Terri Schiavo was removed from life support; and his opposition to legalizing torture for war prisoners. Dent also has said he does not support privatizing Social Security.
Dertinger remains the underdog in 15th District ELECTION 200
8mm
Life is an issue for everyone,and every level of human organization. YES it is an issue for the courts, for the legislature and for the executive, all. It was an issue every nurse and every county deputy should have personally dealt with -- forcefully. By quitting,by refusing to work on a "murder case" in the role of assistants to the murder.
Folks, step up and make sure there's some control on this regime. May I remind you what this election is about? Abu Ghraib, unprecedented presidential powers, unmatched incompetence, unparalleled corruption, unwarranted eavesdropping, Katrina, Enron, Halliburton, global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney's secret energy task force, record oil-company profits, $3-per-gallon gasoline, the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004, Terri Schiavo, stem-cell research, golden parachutes, shrunken pensions, unavailable and expensive health care, habeas corpus, no weapons of mass destruction, sacrificed soldiers and Iraqi civilians, wasted billions, Taliban resurgence, expiration of the assault-weapons ban, North Korea, Iran, intelligent design, swift-boat hit squads and on and on.
Keep eyes on issues that count
8mm
Armey, the former Texas congressman and House majority leader, argued in the Outlook section of this past Sunday's Washington Post that Republicans face an "electoral rout" because they stopped being the party of limited government, allowed spending to spin "out of control," and concentrated on such issues as flag burning, Terry Schiavo and same-sex marriage
On the Religious Right, an Alliance Torn Asunder
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In a report published in a medical journal this month, the doctors described a six-year-old girl with profound, irreversible developmental disability who was given high doses of estrogen to permanently halt her growth so that her parents could continue to care for her at home.
This is a double horror to us personally as it echoes the crafts of the Nazis.
In our case, our son remained naturally small as severely handicapped children usually do. We credited this as a Grace from God as a way of alleviating the physical burden just a bit, but to actually seek such a palliative defies comprehension.
Severely disabled girl 'kept small'
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That is why I invoke the tag line of T'wit, Due to Original Sin, the lesser of two evils is the only choice we've ever had. Vote GOP! and why I consider the axiom that we not cut off our noses to spite our faces."
I've been very disillusioned with the Illegal immigration shamnesty, and will continue to press this issue every which way I can. But at the end of the day, it would be very dangerous to hand control of our Country over to the Rats..If we do this, every man and woman who died fighting against the Terrorists will have died in vein.
Therefor, I have no choice but to vote GOP.
sw
The 109th Congress met for the fewest days in Congressional history. It spent weeks staging theatrical debates about Terry Schiavo and gay marriage, but paid no mind to the monstrous national debt, our growing trade imbalance or our mounting military and diplomatic problems.
Editorial: Congress failing... Congress not meeting obligations, responsibilities
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Moreover, when a Democrat wins, it strengthens the whole Democratic party organization and encourages the hate-America left. It gives them patronage and cash and power that they will use against American traditions and freedoms. You can bet it that it fires up the Islamofascists in Iraq, too.
In my area, there are at least two important races where the Republican seems to have little chance. That's all the more reason I'll vote for them. Better to support the right candidate in even a losing cause than to stay home and surrender to evil.
Remember how absolutely certain the mainstream media were that Terri Schiavo was for all practical purposes already dead because she had been classified as being in a "vegetative" state?
Just recently a woman in a "vegetative" state was discovered by scientists to be able to respond to statements. But have you heard anything about it, much less anything about its relevance to Terri Schiavo?
Media Takes a Side... We know who Diane wants to win.
8mm
Your honor, I would like to call Miss Jodi Centonze -- the mother of Michael Schiavo's illegitimate children -- to testify whether she was sleeping with a "sacredly" married man?
(Remembering to the left, killing an innocent like Terri is "good" and defending that innocent's life is "bad")
Appleton -- Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said today he has spent so much time in traditional Republican strongholds -- including Waukesha County and the Fox Valley -- seeking the votes of GOP voters turned off by the "extreme" views of their party's leaders and candidates.
"What's happened with the Republicans is, they have gone so extreme in so many issues," Doyle told reporters after speaking to a group of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans operations center workers.
"This isn't the Republicans that I used to know," Doyle added. "Now, it's the Republican Party that wants to ban stem cell research, and a Republican Party that wants to intrude in one family's life in Florida," referring to the Terri Schiavo case.
Doyle holds lead in latest poll
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"I am a conservative, BUT." And it is that big BUT that makes him a seminar caller.
I am a Southerner, a conservative, and what the press cynically labels a Bible-believing Christian. I’ve voted in every election since the day I turned 18. I drank the Kool-Aid of Reaganism. I’m on the mailing lists. On paper, I’m what Karl Rove secretly wishes every American would be. And this election day, I will be voting for every Democrat seeking national office I can.
Snip
Where once Republicans stood for states rights and ceding powers to local governments, they now stand for, well, the opposite. No Child Left Behind forces narrow-minded, federally mandated priorities on local. It’s a law that contains so much hand-fisted big government, it made Sen. Ted Kennedy smile ear to ear. And when the Terri Schiavo life support case made the news last year, Republicans in Congress rushed to interfere, steamrolling over the rule of law and local courts in the process. It was what former Speaker of the House Dick Armey rightfully called the “chilling act” of an “arbitrary and imperial Congress.”
Every Republican should vote for a Democrat
8mm
Sheesh. We have too many laws already, thousands of them, all of them stealing our freedom and eating out our substance. Congress should be repealing them wholesale, not passing new ones.
The Terry Schiavo Case, prayer, gay relationships and abortion decisions have prompted vicious attacks on the courts. On each of these issues, the radical right have gone after the courts and judges, rather than the legal reasoning behind the decisions.
Radical right resents judges and juries
8mm
Argggghhhh. This was the rag I used to read, from my Alma Mater! How did I escape??
Over the past year I've written at great length about the wedge issues that the Republican Party has used to drive our nation apart (gay marriage, abortion, prayer in school, Terri Schiavo, etc.). While I've given up trying to rank Bush catastrophes in terms of which ones are the worst, this is undoubtedly one of the more duplicitous acts of the presidency... a presidency of many such acts.
8mm
Not much surprise here:
I don't trust Karl Rove either. He'll do whatever he can to win, and it'll be devious. But lest we forget, this was the chief advisor who oversaw the Iraq War and Katrina disasters, and thought privatizing Social Security and pushing Terri Schiavo were real winners.
8mm
The left brings up Terri constantly so why do they fret?
Why are none of them running on Terry Schiavo? Why so few joint appearances with El Presidente? Why the scattered, johnny-come-lately GOP candidate admissions that maybe, just maybe, Donald Rumsfeld should finally be fired as Secretary of Defense?
And they go a step further, this time riling me up personally. They bring up the coward who exposed himself (not in THAT sense!) in front of me and cohorts years ago, Jimmy Webb, further proof of mindless bias.
Meanwhile, Webb's direct, confident final appeal hits his marine experience first, goes soldier-straight for the jugular on GOP failure without once mentioned their party. Then he brings his entire campaign together with: "Bottom line: they're not fighting for you. I will." He closes by asking for your vote in a rather classy way, notable for two reasons. For one, it's something he's been profiled and not having an easy time doing, not a real gladhanding politician born to it. For another, it's actually a tenet of George W. Bush to always ask for your vote, which seems like common sense maybe lost in the distancing media age.
Politi-flicks: Closing Arguments
8mm
as hard as the truth might be, Schiavo is not affecting Charlie Crist. Given is commanding lead, it is fair to say the issue of Schiavo has negligible effect for him.
Personally, I think if Schiavo advocates would focus, they would find his reasoning to be condusive to reforming the guardianship laws. For example FL passed a law which terminates permanent alimony when the woman cohabitates with her boyfriend but does not remarry.
Likewise that could be used as a model law for real, rather than emotional, legal reform.
Regardless we need to get out the vote and push for the R's to get into office. The legislators write these laws. Unless you maximize you R's you are dead in the water.
A speaker pelosi is not going to care at all about Schiavo. Speaker Pelosi would write legistation for a quick release plug.
But what next week's election seems likely to illustrate is that the laws of thermodynamics -- in particular, the one that states that for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction -- have not been repealed. Upstate New York, the Philadelphia suburbs, Connecticut's tweedy enclaves, and the Microsoft precincts surrounding Seattle seem poised to show that they've had it with the party that restricts funding for stem cell research. In Arizona and Colorado, secular libertarians have grown estranged from the party that invested the power of the federal government in the cause of keeping Terri Schiavo in a vegetative state. In Ohio, voters look to be revolted not just by the corruption of their state and national Republican parties but also by the party's indifference to the collapse of the state's industrial economy.
8mm
For another, nobody's working "to ban stem cell research." That is cheap, dishonest rhetoric (typical of Doyle and a lot of other Democrats). A federal ban already exists on funding for research on new strains of embryonic stem cells -- not adult or cord blood stem cells. That's to keep researchers from killing unborn babies to get stem cells, Mr. Doyle. Stem cell research is legal under federal law and in all fifty states, including research on existing ESC strains.
Actually, the market is making the "law" in stem cell research. ES cells cause tumors and have had zero success in any new therapy. They are such a hopeless case, all the private money is going adult and cord blood stem cell research that is proving to be successful in therapy after therapy.
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