Most who pop in here know I haven’t really taken a stance on the Terri Schiavo disgrace. Partly that is due to not being there in the beginning, and having little knowledge of the issue while trying to play catchup. Also, deeply personal issues which are just that: personal. I applaud those that have been there from the beginning, which includes a large, large number of bloggers on my blogrolls. To them I cannot say how proud I am of them for doing what they think is right, if that means anything to them. Not legally right, but morally right. They haven’t done this for political reasons. They aren’t making a political statement. They are making a moral statement. Kudos.
The thing that is distressing to me is how, over the past 2 weeks, the issue has become so political. Particularly from many on the Left, from the disgusting, revolting comments on the DU, to the "rationalizations" from Democratic pundits. Amazing. It’s funny, though not ha ha funny, how, on an issue that should be coming from the heart, they all of a sudden try to let it come from the head. For years now most issues from the Left have been rationalized from the heart when they should be from the head, now a total 180.
You may be asking yourself "what’s the point?" and "what brought this on?" Well, this is in response to the Leftazoids meme regarding the baby in Texas. It sickens me that the Left has, in their typical knee jerk reaction, saw an issue that so many on the Right were passionate about, and went out and looked for a "similar" incident to not only refute the people who were trying to save Terri’s life for moral reasons, but, to hurt Bush and GOPers for political reasons. So many on the Left are pushing this. I have read it on the DU and on Lefty blogs, and have heard it on the radio and tv. Al Frankin tried to go down that road unbidden on Joe Scarborough Wednesday night. And a caller to Bill Lemay on Raleigh’s WPTF-680 did the same. Let’s look at the transcript from Scarborough.
SCARBOROUGH: I’ll tell you what. This is really—this is one of the most distressing stories I’ve covered.
Let me bring in right now radio talk show host Al Franken.
Al, I wanted to get you on tonight. And thanks for being with us tonight.
You know, I’ve got a radio talk show I just started up. And it’s interesting. Monday, nobody wanted to talk about this. We were talking about the Patriot Act. We were talking about Iraq. The calls started to pick up on Tuesday. Today, I had three different guests on three different subjects. We had to blow them all out because this is all America wanted to talk about. I’m sure what I was hearing much different from what you were hearing.
What were your callers telling you today?
AL FRANKEN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: We don’t take that many calls.
We do a show like I guess you were planning to do, which is, we have guests, sort of a show like you’re doing right now. We did take some calls and we’ve been hearing from our guests certain things. We’ve heard—and things that are reflected in the polls that we’ve been seeing by ABC and by Gallup, things—one of which is that a lot—everyone believes this is a terribly sad thing.
And the tragedy happened. A lot of people say the tragedy happened 15 years ago. There has been an exploitation of this, that—this is what I believe and a lot of our listeners believe—by members of Congress and a lot of hypocrisy. And I’ll give you one example. Where were you, Joe, last week when the—a tube was pulled from a 6-month-old baby in Texas, against the wishes of his parents because of a law signed by George W. Bush which allows hospitals, if they’ve decided that the care is futile, to remove life support, or to remove in this case, it was a breathing tube, even if the parents…
SCARBOROUGH: When you say if the care—if the health care is futile, what do you mean, if the baby can’t be saved?
FRANKEN: Yes. In other words, the same situation essentially…
SCARBOROUGH: But, in this case, her life can be saved. If they feed her, she lives.
FRANKEN: No, it…
SCARBOROUGH: If you take the feeding tube out, she dies.
FRANKEN: Yes, but you’re talking about—first of all, this was against the parents’ wishes. And part of it was—and let me continue…
This was very contentious, and, if you look at the rest of the transcript, you will see the same pattern of evasion. Rather then discussing Terri, Franken had to use the situation for political purposes. At no time did he take a stance for or even against Terri living. Just political rhetoric and cheap political points.
Furthermore, the situation is NOT THE SAME! Terri is not on life support. If you feed her, she can live. Much like a baby, a quadriplegic, someone who is mentally handicapped. People who cannot take care of themselves. The babies death, while tragic, is a separate issue, an apple to Terri’s orange. I said in a comment over at The Jawa Report that nothing that the DUer type Leftazoids could write or say would surprise me. I was wrong. Let Terri’s death, if there is no 11th hour reprieve, be on their uncaring heads. Since so many apparently have no souls.
Excellent take on it. I will have to check out your site more often. If you want check out my blog. If you like it let me know.
You are so absolutely right (as usual of course)…I too saw Franken and was just so disgusted to see the exploitation of Terri as a political issue…Strange to find myself really seeing the better side of many and the ugliest side of so many in our government
Ms Schiavi is a liberal.
Now what do you do?
Her political leanings do not matter to me at all. This shouldn’t be about politics. It should be about morals and morality, not politial leanings. If she is a Howard Dean type lib, doesn’t matter. If she is a true socialist or Communist, doesn’t matter.