Schiavo issue haunts Crist

St. Petersburg Times ^ | November 1, 2006 | ADAM C. SMITH

[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.\

[Jezebelle]

I hope you're right, but these days I have serious doubts about things changing in the direction they need to go.

[T'wit]

>> I would not place any more value in the pronouncements of that bishop than I would in the witches of Eastwick.

I'll second that and throw in the eatches of Westwick.

Don't you just love these long good-byes? Waiting for the taxi, so quick, turn on the computer and say hello good-bye!

[T'wit]

I'm waiting for Mikey to confess rather a larger mistake. It would leave egg on the face of an entire political party if he does, but he's a big enough man to do it, isn't he?

[floriduh voter]

Mikey is Scott Peterson without the boat.

[floriduh voter]

bumper sticker in the works: I voted against the GOP for Killing Terri Schiavo (not mine but it's in the grapevine). Do you know many republicans voted for Jim Davis because the new governor K aided and abetted? Davis brought the Terri vote to the floor for debate. Davis didn't kill Terri. Governor K did.

[wagglebee]

Mikey is Scott Peterson without the boat.

Ultimately, Lacy suffered a lot less than Terri did.

[8mmMauser]

Ilana Mercer on Thomas Szasz in the Free Market News Network...

The other Bush initiative I endorsed was the attempt by Congress to uphold Terri Schiavo’s inalienable right to life—a decision very many conservatives now rue.

Upholding rights to life, liberty, and property is a government’s primary—some would say only—duty. But, bless their cruel little hearts, this cast of conservative characters is at least consistent. It relished the launch of a bloody war in contravention of fact, law, and morality, and now, fittingly, it’s atoning for its incongruent attempts to forestall a killing.

Snip...

Szasz conjures “the legendary case of the disputed baby in the Old Testament,” as a metaphor for “the difference between the language of love and life, and the language of envy and death; between the philosophy of individualism and libertarianism, and the philosophy of collectivism and statism; and between the ethics of justice and the sanctity of life, and the ethics of bioethics and the justification for medical killing.” Only in Schiavo vs. Schindler, the judge, lacking Solomonic wisdom, gave the proverbial baby to the party that had vowed to have her killed.

Things turned out well for Dick Armey and his ilk, after all.

CONSERVATIVES FOR KILLING TERRI

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[8mmMauser]

Believe it or not, they call it "mercy"—but it can only be deemed "merciful" if you strip words of their meaning.

There was a time, not too long ago, when a merciful man or woman would go out of their way to help those who were suffering. They extended acts of kindness and compassion to those in need. Self-sacrifice and love for the less fortunate animated their actions.

Today, advocates of euthanasia argue that they are merciful when they kill the sick and handicapped. Sadly, this twisted notion of mercy is gaining ground around the world. The groups first targeted were the elderly, the severely handicapped, and the very sick. The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and the state of Oregon all allow doctors to prescribe deadly medicines to men and women with various medical problems.

Mercy Killing: An Oxymoron

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[8mmMauser]

Thanks, wagglebee, for ping to this thread by presidio9. The judge here is no Greer.

A judge has rejected a family's plea that a 53-year-old woman in a vegetative state should be allowed to die.

He has ordered instead that she should be given a drug that could wake her up.

Brain-damaged woman must be given 'wake-up' pill, orders judge

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[8mmMauser]

A look from Real Clear Politics...

.....................

With the exception of the section on Schiavo, this was a solid analysis. Your conclusions about the factors that drove the election were accurate and your prognostications about future democratic opportunities seem spot on.

On Schiavo, MSM manipulation of the issue affected perceptions of middle-ground voters. The facts are these:

1. State government entities prevented the biological parents from providing for their daughter.
2. The law as written was on the side of the husband.
3. The husband behaved in a poor fashion in my opinion.
4. The law as written is generally good.
5. This case was an extreme example that tested the limits of existing statues.

More Election 2006

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[8mmMauser]

Now that the schedule of O.J. Simpson is cleared up a bit, maybe he can make it to this gathering, as a real expert. (William Colby, more than just a cheese, and less than the one who already went to room temperature courtesy of uhhhh Clinton era antics.)

........................

William Colby, an authority on end-of-life issues, will be the guest speaker at a seminar from 8:30 a.m. to noon Nov. 28 at Palm Beach Community College's Duncan Theater, at Sixth and Congress avenues in Lake Worth.

"From Cruzan, 1990, to Schiavo, 2005, What Have We Learned?," explores lessons learned in the wake of the deaths of Nancy Cruzan in 1990 an Terri Schiavo in 2005.

A panel discussion will feature local leaders in the health-care field, as well as religious leaders in Palm Beach County. Among the sponsors are Palm Beach Community College and Hospice of Palm Beach County.

The event is free. Registration is required; call 227-5146.

End-of-life issues topic of forum

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[8mmMauser]

Haleigh Poutre Update, sort of...

Mitt Romney had been on the side of anti-life years ago, yet in recent times has appeared to come over to the pro-life side. Now as he moves into the national spotlight, his actions to protect Haleigh Poutre ratify that perspective. I wonder as his quest may ebb and flow how it will affect the attitude/treatment of DSS and others towards Haleigh.

Steven Ertelt of Life News reports.

...........................

Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney says he will make a decision in January about whether he will enter the 2008 race for president. Romney, who last year converted to the pro-life position after years of backing legalized abortion, would join the growing field of candidates seeking the GOP nomination if he joined the race.

Snip...

Since that interview, Romney has opposed human cloning and aggressively pursued an investigation against state officials who asked a state court to kill Haleigh Poutre, a young girl who recently recovered from a coma.

How this change of heart will play out in the 2008 Republican primaries remains to be seen.

Mitt Romney Will Make Decision About 2008 Presidential Race in January

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[8mmMauser]

Latest from a Christian news source on the euthanasia developments for the British.

Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor of England, has warned doctors in a recent statement that they may face prison sentences if they refuse to euthanise patients. Criminal charges of assault could be laid against doctors or nurses who refuse to allow patients to die, even by removal of food and hydration tube.

Snip...

British courts, in conjunction with jurisdictions around the world, have determined that it is sometimes in the patient’s best interest to be dehydrated to death by removal of feeding and hydration tubes. In many parts of the world, including Canada, food and hydration is considered “medical treatment” and as such can be, and frequently is, withheld on the grounds that it constitutes “extraordinary treatment”.

This was the thinking that allowed the court-ordered killing of Terri Schindler Schiavo in 2005.

Snip...

While the new Act insists doctors kill patients who might otherwise live, the reverse determination was not upheld either by British or European courts. Leslie Burke, a British man who suffers from a degenerative disease that will one day render him unable to communicate, went to court to obtain a guarantee that he would not be dehydrated to death on the orders of doctors.

Doctors Who Refuse Euthanasia Face Criminal Charges

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[8mmMauser]

There is a convention in modern debating known as “Godwin’s Law.” Simply put, it states that as an argument progresses, it is increasingly likely that one of its participants will compare their opponents’ ideas to those of the Nazis, and in so doing, sacrifice much of their credibility.

Unfortunately for some, Godwin’s Law isn’t really protection from accurate analogies. And “some” in this case describes The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which recently decided that infants born before 23 weeks, who are in dire need of life-support, ought not to be revived unless their parents - and doctor - feel it appropriate to save them.

The details of this decision have already been reported, but the skinny is nothing new: Triage has less to do with the proposed guidelines than “compassion” of a familiar sort. The tenuous struggle to survive a premature birth seems too cruel an ordeal for many doctors to condone. And the decision is, ultimately, the doctor’s. If the parents beg and plead, but the man in the white coat feels differently, the council believes the bio-engineer, not the family, is best suited to mete out life or death.

But let us not be too hard on the English. They aren’t trailblazers in this area of endeavor. Perhaps the reader can recall the Terri Schiavo affair, which also promoted a vision of Death With Dignity. She was “allowed” to die without a single piece of evidence ever confirmed indicating such a course of action was consistent with her wishes. The burning question remains: If we can end a person’s life on hearsay, why is the standard for willing their property so much more stringent?

Council’s Abortion Decision Allows Baby Death

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[8mmMauser]

Blue Dog days ahead?

........................

Amid all the hoopla last week hailing the Blue Dogs’ new place in the sun were a couple articles suggesting the conservative Democrats would work with the moderate Republican Tuesday Group on a number of issues. Mark Kirk's (R-IL) office is already dubbing the new team the “Tuesday Dogs.” But aside from the fact that both groups face political challenges at home and in their respective caucuses, what do F-150 Democrats and Volvo Republicans really have in common?

In general, the Tuesday Groupers represent suburban districts that encompass towns like ritzy Fairfield, CT, and Lake Forest, IL, while the Blue Dogs are rural Democrats from places like the Napoleonville, LA, and Port St. Joe, FL.

As the geography would suggest, this presents a cultural rift. A number of Blue Dogs, including boss hog John Tanner (D-TN), voted to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case while a couple Tuesday Groupers, including likely 110th Congress co-chair Charlie Dent (R-PA), spoke out against the measure.

"Tuesday Dogs” All Bark and No Bite?

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[8mmMauser]

Ping to Diago thread on Kramer vs. Sanger.

Cosmo Kramer or Margaret Sanger: Two Great American Bigots Square off

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[floriduh voter]

I'm no on Giuliani and McLame too.

[floriduh voter]

Not a long lasting matter? How wrong you are.

[floriduh voter]

Your theory is okay except that Michael Schiavo has a covenant with the local law enforcement. It wouldn't do Jodi any good to give the local police any of the goods on MS. They'd shred it all to protect golden boy Michael. The question is: who has he been blackmailing all these years?

[floriduh voter]

There is a busy street near Mikey's neighborhood called Enterprise. Isn't that ironic considering how enterprising he was in getting the state to kill his wife for him?