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.\

[trustandobey]

floriduh voter, I never knew this about Dick Armey, are you sure???

[T'wit]

>> ...Of course, an autopsy later confirmed that Schiavo had been completely brain dead.

Evidently you don't need to know how to read to get into Princeton these days. Or how to do research. Or check facts. Certainly this ninny didn't read the autopsy report, which denied any such finding. He also doesn't understand what "brain dead" means in medical language. Nobody EVER diagnosed Terri as brain dead, in life or post-mortem. Had she been brain dead, she would have needed a respirator to breathe. In truth, Terri was not on any life support as people understand that term. She merely had a feeding tube as hundreds of thousands of patients do.

[8mmMauser]

P.S. I heard that Hillary's esteemed occasional husband orated yesterday that the Republicans can't run anything. I'm pretty sure this is the same fellow who got himself impeached by dribbling some of his precious seminal fluid on an intern's dress and then telling the whole country that he didn't. Doesn't seem like a very good job of "running things" to me.

That was Clinton's bent. If nothing else, he was the father of clintonism.

[T'wit]

Unfortunately, yes, Mr. Armey shot his mouth off about this. He was thundering about strict constitutionalism, which is fine -- except he didn't stop to get the facts about Terri. He also forgot the 14th amendment.

[T'wit]

>> That was Clinton's bent.

Hahahahaha!

For those who don't get the joke, we'll explain later, in private :-)

[8mmMauser]

Voter Day ping to a thread by Mr. Silverback...

For those who'll have trouble reading the fine print, I'll summarize. This is Chief Master Sergeant John Gebhardt, and the girl he's holding is the only survivor of a family methodically executed by terrorists in Iraq. They shot her in the head, too.

Staying home? Voting? Either way, look at this picture

8mm

[T'wit]

I can imagine Che Guevara in the refrigerator. Is there any hope for me?

[T'wit]

Even after all the years, it amazes me how the the Democratic talking points filter down from the Great Oz (the one behind the curtain) to the rank-and-file.

Whereupon the lackeys will all repeat the same litany, as this one does. And they will pride themselves on their original thinking as they parrot their lessons. Foley and Terri Schiavo and Duke Cunningham (I mean, WHO remembers him on election day?), and Jack Abramoff (another name everyone has forgotten, and a friend of Democrats too, jerko), and on and on.

I use the term "thinking" loosely up there. Thought nowhere intrudes into this process.

[8mmMauser]

Ping to wagglebee thread and an amazing admission by one of "them". To me, the question, RU 486? is simple. I am against it.

"The complications associated with RU-486 far exceed the complications of surgical abortions," he told the New York Times. Stutes, who refuses to give women the abortion drug, said he was reluctant to agree with pro-life advocates that the abortion drug is dangerous, "But the truth is the truth."

Planned Parenthood May Have Caused Women's Abortion Drug Deaths

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[Dante3]

I believe it was Ann Coulter who called them the stealth judges.

[8mmMauser]

I can imagine Che Guevara in the refrigerator. Is there any hope for me?

A chilling image indeed. Any hope for me??

[8mmMauser]

Here is something that if all goes well today, will be another deja vu all over again tomorrow.

Enjoy this classic clip from the Rush Limbaugh show from Jan.1995 where the Democrats absolutely lose it in front of cameras just shortly after the '94 election landslide.

Classic Video Clip: Democrats Meltdown In Front of News Cameras After '94 Elections

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[8mmMauser]

Ping to above.

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[8mmMauser]

Thanks to the ping for above.

[8mmMauser]

Þ 'r us.

[narses]

+

If you want on (or off) this Catholic and Pro-Life ping list, let me know!

[Theodore R.]

Actually, O'Connor was really Barry Goldwater's mistake, wasn't she? And also Kenneth Starr. Reagan just did as he was told.

[8mmMauser]

Big ping this election day to kristinn who is in Iraq with the troops and with the Gold Star Families.

Greetings from FRee Iraq! The Gold Star parents visiting Iraq will be on Free Republic later today to discuss our trip here. Please post questions and comments on this thread for the families.

This will be the first group interview from Iraq by the Gold Star families. For some reason, the MSM hasn't shown any interest in this historic trip :-) So once again, FReepers will scoop the MSM.

Live Chat with Gold Star Parents in Iraq Today (11/07/06)

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[T'wit]

Theodore R., how ya doing? Welcome back.

As for Barry G. and Kenneth Starr -- I'm sitting here chuckling that these two men show up as "the men around the President." True or not, TMATPs always get blamed -- Colonel House, Harry Hopkins, Sherman Adams, Walter Jenkins, Karl Rove nowadays. But, sigh, the Gipper himself had his finger on the trigger.

[T'wit]

>> I believe it was Ann Coulter who called them the stealth judges.

I don't remember, but it sounds right :-) I believe I recall her discussing the implicit scrapping of the 14th amendment due to Schiavo, but I haven't been able to find it. Bet she'd agree in any case. I can just see Terri being rescued from the hospice -- only to have her dragged back and executed under the Fugitive Slave Act.