Thanks to Eternal Vigilance and Sun for bringing this to our attention.
One thing we as pro-life people have learned throughout this episode of the last few years is that Terri's Legacy has been a watershed. It has neatly split opinion into two distinct and opposing camps. One is for the saving of her innocent life or one is for having it killed. There is little room for being in between. If anything, Terri's Legacy has illustrated as few other events have, the conflict between good and evil. As this becomes a study of absolutes, one is either for good for evil, and it is quite difficult to take a middle ground. Can one be for sort of good and sort of evil? It seems to me that sitting on this thin fence is tantamount to sitting on the edge of a razor blade, (for those who remember razor blades...) Say it ain't so, Fred Thompson. Say you choose good over evil in this case. I am baffled that you are not informed, as a candidate for the highest office, especially since you played a character on tv in a Terri scenario! The other candidates were aware of this important issue and candidates like Duncan Hunter said it loud and clear in a debate. Wasn't that an issue important enough for you?
Please tell us, so that we won't think of you as just a preselected and anointed choice of the elites and globalists.
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Former Tennessee Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson ventured into hazardous terrain Thursday in Florida, where he suggested Congress overstepped its bounds by involving itself in the Terri Schiavo case.
Coverage of his remarks, made to a local cable television station, prompted his campaign to request a correction from at least one media outlet as to how its reports characterized his response. And it prompted some political observers to note that Thompson, a former actor who played District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's "Law & Order," prosecuted a similar, fictional, version of the Schiavo case in that television drama.
Thompson directly refrained from sharing his opinion on the issue, which pitted Schiavo's husband Michael, who wanted to remove the feeding tube of his long brain-dead wife, against her parents, brother, and many religious conservatives, who insisted despite the overwhelming medical evidence that she had some cognition. Florida courts repeatedly sided with Michael Schiavo, but the case exploded to become a national obsession and Congress intervened in March 2005 to prevent her tube from being removed. Ultimately federal courts refused to intervene and Schiavo died on March 31, 2005.
"Local matters, generally speaking, should be left to the locals," Thompson said Thursday in what seemed a gentle way of suggesting Congress over-stepped its bounds. "I think Congress has got an awful lot to keep up with."
Thompson also made sure not to impugn the motives of any of the religious conservatives whose support he now needs for his presidential campaign. "I know that good people were doing what they thought was best," he said.
The Associated Press originally characterized Thompson as having said he had no opinion, since Thompson said "I don't remember the details of the case." But the Thompson campaign successfully convinced the wire service to change its language to suggest he didn't share his opinion -- not that he didn't have one.
"Not being part of the situation, not being in the Senate at that point, he did not want to pass judgment," said Thompson campaign press secretary Jeff Sadosky. "He feels some decisions need to be made by families under state and local government."
As gruff-but-lovable conservative D.A. Arthur Branch, Thompson didn't weigh in on the fictional "Karen Burrows" case, from a typical "ripped-from-the-headlines" episode of the cops and lawyers drama. Karen Burrows was a stand-in for Terri Schiavo on an episode entitled "Age of Innocence" that aired on October 12, 2005.
But Thompson's character did support the prosecution of those who murdered Robert Barrows, the Michael Schiavo character who was trying to have the feeding tube of his brain dead wife removed.
In what may prove to be a case of life imitating art, this prompted criticism from conservatives.
"Arthur Branche – closet liberal," said a conservative radio talk show host on the episode. "I always suspected."................................................
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