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 womans 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 womans death. But he maintained on Tuesday that he forcefully expressed his opposition from the start.
I spoke loudly, Crist said in Tallahassee. I think its 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 dont 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 governors office with legal work to keep Schiavo alive, even though he personally had qualms.
I dont remember that, but Ill 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 successors 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 didnt.
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. Crists involvement in the Schiavo case may be the only common ground between the Schindler family, Terri
Schiavos 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 hes going to be a leader, my heart dropped. Hes not a leader, hes 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. Hes a coward.
Terri Schiavos father, Bob Schindler, wrote an essay in August accusing Crist of snubbing the familys 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 Crists 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 doesnt 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.\
Can't wait to read that one! :-)
Here's a photo of the rec room the morning after George and Mike and George and Debbie and Ronnie and Jay and Scott and Joan "did it" together.
Someday, propagandist media will be found out. Terri was murdered. It was on a grand scale. They did it!
Yes, you fixed it. Murder is a felony crime. OJ killed two people. How many people have Amerika's judges and lawyers including the ACLU murdered? I'd say many more than OJ did.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1740443/posts
BE SURE AND HYDRATE ALL THE ILLEGALS BUT KILL AMERICAN DISABLED. THAT'S THE LAW.
One poster says they'll never vote for Jeb Bush because of Terri's cruel and barbaric death.
http://blog.ilanamercer.com/Index.php?p=330
OJ's a Floridian too. In Terri's case, Florida DID IT, no ifs ands or buts.
So Sandra Day got laced treats. I'm sure her food tester handled it for her. Sandra is trying to convince the public that her her job was dangerous. It's less dangerous than having a feeding tube.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/columnists/linda_campbell/16026116.htm
O' Connor was the worst mistake Ronald Reagan ever made.
The cartoon gives to much credit. Terri's wheelchair was broke and Michael refused to have it fixed. Remember that when you have to paint the handicapped zone in front of your place of business.
Yes, and re: the cartoon, Judge Greer is a broken man but he doesn't realize yet that the joke's on him.
Money talks while common sense walks.
I feel sorry for all Floridians. However, I'll never feel sorry for Judge Greer or anyone that evil for that matter.
Koolaid governor incoming in January.
It took a lot of courage and wisdom to kill Terri FV.
All of that and a certain genius to convince so many that murdering innocents is good, a duty, and trying to save them is bad.
rant> Thank you very much Charlie and George Greer, and thanks very much, George Will, for your coined phrase now picked up and used to convince the world that murdering an innocent is a good thing and saving same is a bad thing. The theme is developing as a fresh mantra as it wraps the notion many decent Americans share, (namely that killing innocents is a bad thing) with the notion that Congress should not overstep its bounds (especially in trying to control our Imperial Judiciary.)
Now we see efforts to discourage the killing of an innocent is "extreme".
/rant>
But rather than serving as this year's Republican savior, Missouri ended up exemplifying why the GOP lost the mid-terms and why the religious right's political alliances are increasingly, startlingly, up for grabs. Like their evangelical counterparts almost everywhere else, Missouri's religious right voted in surprisingly healthy, near-2004 numbers. But moderate and independent Missourians did not come along for the ride partly because the stem-cell wedge proved to be anything but magic. Like the infamous Terri Schiavo intervention by Congress, opposition to stem cell research is an extreme extension of the "pro-life" position an extension too far, in the view of many Christian voters. As former Senator John Danforth wrote in spring 2005, "It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases." Danforth's blast spread through Missouri faster than kudzu. So did his warning that the religious right had become a dangerously divisive force.
GOP Doesn't Monopolize Moral Politics
8mm
About Republicans' recent misadventures: "The country is not as stupid as they think," with their grandstandings about flag burnings and Terri Schiavo.
Blunt Bloomberg spurns independent presidential run
8mm
WASHINGTON-- I almost feel sorry for conservative Republican true believers. Almost, mind you. They were so cocky and self-assured that it didn't occur to them they were going to lose, and their figureheads still can't accept it.
Rush Limbaugh, among the worst, is insisting that the conservative movement is alive and well because the new Democratic majority is stuffed with non-liberals who are against abortion and favor the right-wing playbook's cultural constraints. Dream on, Rush.
Snip...
It took an unpopular war, an unpopular president, an astonishing array of scandals and offensive policies like keeping severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo breathing to do it. The Republicans overestimated the wool they could pull over voters' eyes. The politics of fear no longer trumped everything else.
Pity -- almost -- the GOP true believers
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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Republican caucus in the House of Representatives picked pro-life lawmakers to head their party as they assume the minority position in Congress. The re-elected two of their current pro-life leaders by having John Boehner of Ohio serve as Minority Leader and Roy Blunt of Missouri as Minority Whip. In a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, Boehner was re-elected in a secret ballot, 168-27 over pro-life Indiana congressman Mike Pence.
Boehner has a 100 percent pro-life voting record according to the National Right to Life Committee. He has voted against abortion and abortion funding but also voted against forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research and supported Terri Schiavo's parents in their bid to have federal courts review their case to stop their daughter's euthanasia death.
Snip...
Blunt also has a 100 percent pro-life voting record, NRLC statistics show and voted the same as Boehner on bioethics issues.
After the elections both of the party's leaders said it would need to focus on conservative principles like pro-life values in the next session of Congress.
"We need to start by rebuilding the Republican brand," Boehner said. "Republicans need to get back to our core principles and rededicate ourselves to the reform mind-set that put us in the majority 12 years ago."
Congressional Republicans Pick Pro-Life Stalwarts as Party Leaders
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WASHINGTON, November 17, 2006 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - President George W. Bush has appointed a physician with close ties to the pro-life movement to supervise federal family-planning programs.
The President has named Dr. Eric Keroack to be the assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In that post he will supervise the disbursement of $283 million in annual federal grants to family-planning programs.
Pro-Life Doctor Appointed To Supervise Us Family-Planning Programs
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