Day: March 21, 2005

St. Petersburg Times:

Like other Republican lawmakers championing Schiavo’s bill, DeLay often suggests she is alert and potentially treatable.

“She talks and she laughs and she expresses likes and discomforts,” he said Sunday evening. “It won’t take a miracle to help Terri Schiavo. It will only take the medical care and therapy that patients require.”

After years of review, a Florida circuit court judge found that Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, and any emotions she appears to express are simply reflexive. Based largely on the testimony of her husband and friends, a judge ruled she would not want to be kept alive, and ordered her feeding tube removed Friday.

Americablog has two related articles on the Schiavo travesty. For both horror and amusement, check out DC’s Inside Scoop, which has the GOP talking points on Schiavo that were leaked. The Scoop says rumor has it that these gem were the handiwork of folks at the office of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA).

Here are three of the GOP message points:

* This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.
* This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida – has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.
* This legislation ensures that individuals like Teri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy.

The second AmericaBlog article points to an ABC News poll that indicates that Americans support removing Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube 63-28.

The politics propelling this tragic tomfoolery are no surprise to anyone reading this, I’m sure. Nor are the Gops’ syrupy denials of political motivation. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” I heard one of them purr, on CNN.

If there’s anything to the ABC poll, it would seem to indicate that the Gops may have gotten ahead of the public on this. Amazingly, Tom DeLay and crew even got Bush involved, meaning Karl and Karen approved it. It’s hard to believe those geniuses didn’t know they only had 28 percent of the public – basically their base – in their pockets when they flew George in early from his weekend in Crawford to sign the bill. Talk about believing your own press!

Unlike with the Gannon scandal, the media has all guns trained on this one. We’d like to think that such brazen political trampling into a woman’s tragic life – not to mention the sanctity of her heterosexual marriage – would raise a stink among the voters, but Americans seems to have endless tolerance for the shenanigans of George Bush and his crowd of Republicans in the Capitol these days.

Still, if the wind shifts in the way the ABC poll indicates, the Gops are going to have trouble blaming this one on 9/11 – or even the Democrats.