You have to wonder if there isn't some behind the scenes deal between the MCI board and Verizon

I find it hard to believe that the MCI shareholders are better off with the much lower Verizon offer than they would be with the Qwest offer. The MCI board keeps trying to accept the inferior Verizon offer, ignoring Qwest, and then Qwest ups the ante. I must admit to a prejudice, in that I have been a consultant to Qwest twice (2001-2002 and 2003-2004). I also have been involved with a bid to Verizon, where they wanted to low-ball the deal and go with someone for half the price (at 1990 rates). When I interviewed with Verizon in the Dallas area in 2004, they kept asking me why I would work for so little. Partly, I didn't realize just how low they wanted to go.

I have appreciated Jonathan Last being on top of the Terry Schiavo case

Jonathan Last sums up the problem with those who wanted Terry Schiavo killed for political reasons:

It Is Finished

Mark Steyn on the public execution of Terri Schiavo; William Anderson on how the justice system failed us. Both are stunning rebukes to Reynolds, Hertzberg, Sullivan, et al.

It just goes to show that some bloggers thought of as being rather conservative, such as Glenn Reynolds, is pretty liberal.

Now we turn to eviscerating those responsible for euthanizing Terry Schiavo

An interesting feature of the last several days is that pictures of Terry Schiavo showed her prior to brain damage. Well, she's gone, and now we can hope that those responsible can be held responsible and treated appropriately. I said in my title, "eviscerated" and that is still my opinion on the subject.

Bill, at INDC Journal has an update on the Terry Schiavo FAQs and more

Bill, of INDC Journal, quotes a piece that bad effects are often more due to laziness than outright malicious intent. That might apply to the judges involved in the Terry Schiavo case.

Terry Schiavo is beyond help

At this point, the withdrawal of food and water has left Terry Schiavo beyond help. It has just been too long, and too much physical damage has been done. That doesn't excuse the players in this drama for not wanting to stop her death. My opinion is that they all should pay a price. Someone should equip the Schindlers (Terry's parents) with better legal representation than they have had, and they should go after Michael Schiavo for his abuse of the trust fund that was supposed to be used to care for Terry (Theresa). He has blown at least a cool $100K in the last year trying to get Terry euthanized. I understand that he has also blown most of the trust fund. Bad behavior needs to be corrected.

Ed Morrissey has the goods on the judge in the 11th Circuit Court who ruled against Terry's parents

Ed Morrissey has an enlightening post on the situation with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It basically confirmed my worst fears about what had happened. Essentially, the judge decided that Terry could die in the cause of showing the the judiciary is stronger than the President and Congress. It also seems that he hates Republicans and Christians, but you can judge for yourself. Of course, the judge ignored the law passed by Congress and signed by the President. Is that any surprise? Ed is ready to ask the Senate to impeach Judge Birch.

Ace pointed out this morning about the Schindler's federal court hearing

Ace had a post after midnight about the Schindler's last minute success in Federal Court, in getting a hearing. I don't understand all the people who want Terry Schiavo to die. I almost suspect that supposed polling firms are trying to push opinion in that direction, but it is likely to reflect how successful the left has been in painting the president and congress as being "bad people". The new devil is Tom Delay.

New software-related blog: C++ Wish List

There is a new software-related blog that my co-worker just started. He is a C++ guru, among other things, so he is writing about his wishlist for C++: C++ Wish List. The actual URL is distributed-components.blogspot.com. The C++ Wish List is his title. He also has an interesting C++-like language and compiler that he developed some time ago. That is available at ZHMicro. (Sorry for breaking the "wall-to-wall Terry Schiavo" run of posts)

Jonathan Last asks what if Terry Schiavo had been treated as disability rights case

Apparently, our lefty buddies see killing Terry Schiavo as a dual blow to fundamentalist Christians and for abortion rights. I'm not sure why the latter is true, but it seems to be. Jonathan Last, on Galley Slaves, posts on the subject and has a link to a lefty writer that illustrates that this is true. Jonathan starts by writing:

Part 2: Why Do They Hate Terri?

Reihan notes Rik Hertzberg's writing on Terri Schiavo. You'll recall that the question is whether the left wants Terri dead because Christians want her alive, or because they see saving her life as a blow to abortion rights.

The other sort of severely and profoundly handicapped student my wife had

My wife had special ed students that were severely and profoundly handicapped students in the mid-1990's. One of these was a severe cerebral palsy case. John Hinderaker, at Powerline, has a post linking to a Harvard student whose doctor had tried to pull the plug on him. He apparently still is pretty angry about it. The piece appears in the Harvard Crimson, and is very hard-hitting and Mr. Ford doesn't think much of what is being done to Terry Schiavo:

Reader Louis Rossetto pointed out this extraordinarily well written piece on the Schiavo case by Harvard student Joe Ford, who suffers from cerebral palsy. Mr. Ford still seems a bit annoyed with the doctor who once tried to put him out of his misery.

Terry Schiavo versus "the Rule of Law"

"St. Paul" at Fraters Libertas has a long post about the last Northern Alliance Radio Network show and callers about the Terry Schiavo matter. There seems to have been a big disconnect between the callers and NARN guys. The sort of nitpicking case is that "well, if that's the law, then I guess she has to die". I disagree with that, in that some things shouldn't be allowed. If the process seems to generate the wrong outcome, then there is something wrong with the process, and it should be changed. After all, we are dealing with the "judicial supremacy" business, which is what is wrong with much of what is happening right now.

This is pretty bad, but it almost sounds like Michael Schiavo wants to "destroy the envidence"

I just heard on television that Michael Schiavo wants to have Terry's body cremated, after she dies. That is not what her parents want, naturally, but Michael has been winning every battle, so he will probably win this one too. It's pretty bad, but my initial reaction is that he wanted to destroy the evidence.

Clayton Cramer on Michael Schiavo and Terry's last days

Clayton Cramer is pretty angry at how things are playing out, because of the Michael Schiavo is impeding even giving Terry the last rites of the Catholic Church. I hadn't known for sure that she was Catholic, although something I had read in last few days had made me wonder. Clayton concludes:

There's only one consolation to this bitter ending. In a few days, Terri Schiavo will die, and go where people like Michael Schiavo, his attorney, the judicial system, and whatever caused her original collapse into coma, or PVS, or whatever this, can't cause her any more problems.

I've seen defenders of starving Terri Schiavo claim that it shouldn't cause Christians any grief if Terri dies, because she's going to Heaven anyway. I guess we shouldn't let genocide, murder, or capital punishment cause us any grief, either, then. The problem with all of these actions (and I include capital punishment in that list intentionally) is not just what they do the person who dies, but what they do to the society that engages in them: it cheapens and degrades us.

He has more, and a quote that illustrates why he is angry.

Just one minute has a link

JustOneMinute has a post "Raise the Cone of Silence" about the Terry Schiavo case, and her husband.

Raise The Cone Of Silence

The Saturday Times continues their Schiavo coverage with a front page catch-up Michael basher. Innuendo, unanswered questions, no mention that the trust fund is virtually depleted - why now?

As we noted, as of last Monday, his personal story was not newsworthy.

He also has a related post where he thinks that liberals got concessions on stemcell research in exchange for support on the (ineffective) Schiavo bill. He starts off:

Reopening The Stem Cell Debate

With the Schiavo Relief bill, one might well ask - why did Congressfolk support an unpopular and ineffective bill?

In what I view as damage control, various groups are emerging to explain. The Times implies that moderate House Republicans may have won concessions on the stem cell debate. From the Times:

The Republican leadership of the House has told party moderates that the House will vote this year on a proposal to modify President Bush's stem cell research policy, opening another contentious moral, theological and scientific debate about when life begins and ends.

John Hinderaker says that the Schindlers were "outlawyered"

I had seen this before, and it still makes the most sense as the explanation why Terry Schiavo is going to die, and soon. John Hinderaker has a good post on the subject:

What Went Wrong

Steve Sailer reproduces a letter from a Florida lawyer, who comments on how the seemingly perverse outcome of the Terri Schiavo litigation came about:

I have been following the case for years. Something that interests me about the Terri Schiavo case, and that doesn't seem to have gotten much media attention: The whole case rests on the fact that the Schindlers (Terri's parents) were totally outlawyered by the husband (Michael Schiavo) at the trial court level.

This happened because, in addition to getting a $750K judgment for Terri's medical care, Michael Schiavo individually got a $300K award of damages for loss of consortium, which gave him the money to hire a top-notch lawyer to represent him on the right-to-die claim.

By contrast, the Schindlers had trouble even finding a lawyer who would take their case since there was no money in it. Finally they found an inexperienced lawyer who agreed to take it partly out of sympathy for them, but she had almost no resources to work with and no experience in this area of the law. She didn't even depose Michael Schiavo's siblings, who were key witnesses at the trial that decided whether Terri would have wanted to be kept alive. Not surprisingly, Felos steamrollered her.

He sums up as follows:

I can't comment on the quality of the work done at the trial level without reading the transcript, but in general, what this lawyer says is correct. The reason why appeals don't often succeed is that all fact-finding is done in the trial court. If there is evidence to support the facts found by the judge or the jury, those facts are set in concrete from that point on. The question on appeal is only whether proper procedures were followed and the law was correctly applied. It is not hard to imagine that the Schindlers had no idea what they were getting into, and were ill-equipped, financially and otherwise, to fight a legal battle against their son-in-law. By the time they started garnering outside support, it was too late.

Via Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE: As several readers have noted, the statute that Congress passed last week was intended to mandate a new look at the facts, with no deference paid to what happened years ago in the Florida state court. This is what is meant by a "de novo" review. But, as we have said many times, the federal district court took an unreasonably narrow view of the act, and simply deferred, once again, to the facts that Judge Greer found long ago. This cannot be blamed on the inherent, and appropriate, principles of our judicial system.

Charles Johnson on the Terry Schiavo case

I never know where Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is going to come down on non-security issues. He is not someone who has a big emotional investment in saving Terry Schiavo. He essentially cautions us to be careful about the situation, and not be too quick to buy into the more outrageous stories (my extrapolation of what he is saying).

3/26/2005: A Little Less Certainty

Glenn says that in the Terri Schiavo furor, some on the right are acting like the left, flaming people like Rev. Donald Sensing because they express contrary opinions.

I can vouch that Glenn’s right; I’ve received a few very nasty emails, and been called “Judas” here at LGF, simply for stating that I was uncomfortable with judging the people involved in Terri’s case, and criticizing the junk science and unfounded speculation that has been all too prevalent.

Glenn also points out that the “agree on everything or you’re evil” approach is exactly what has gotten the Democrat Party into such trouble; and I would add to that: 1) the failure to fact check, and 2) the willingness to believe in questionable sources with unshakable certainty.

He also cites Jeff Jacoby, a liberal intellectual:

Jeff Jacoby has one of the best, most thoughtful pieces I’ve read about the Schiavo case: Less certainty, more prayer.

Scott Johnson, at Powerline, has a good piece on the Terry Schiavo story

Scott Johnson starts off by writing something that really rings true to me:

Conduct unbecoming

In their Weekly Standard piece on "The politics of the Schiavo case," Jeff Bell and Frank Cannon apprehend a dynamic that belies the poll results with which we've been inundated:

It was a substantive policy victory for forces opposed to the right to life (it doesn't seem accurate, in this instance, to describe these forces as "pro-choice"), but it may be a victory they come to regret. For one thing, in content it was far more an extension of the implications of legalized abortion than of assisted suicide.

Of the whole array of anti-life agenda items, assisted suicide receives the greatest level of support in public opinion polling, undoubtedly because it is seen as the least coercive. But in the end game of the Terri Schiavo case, the longstanding assertion by her husband that Terri would welcome what was being done to her seemed at most a formality. The courts all but made explicit that the killing was not really about her wishes but only about those of her husband and legal guardian. The implication that Terri's fate was to be the choice of the husband, and of him alone, followed the form of abortion law, which puts the choice in the hands of the mother, and of no one else.

Scott also writes:

Coming on the heels of the conviction of Scott Peterson for double homicide--of his wife and of his unborn son--the Schiavo case is the latest of a series of public debates and public events in which political momentum has significantly shifted to the pro-life side. If you doubt this, try comparing the public debate on abortion in the election year of 1992 with that of 2004. In 1992, it was Republican politicians and candidates who tried to downplay the abortion issue. In 2004 and today, it is Democrats who would rather talk about anything else, and are taking instruction on how to deflect the issue in their campaign schools.

The Bell/Cannon essay appears in the Standard's April 4 issue, which is largely devoted to the Schiavo case. The Standard has made all of the Schiavo pieces available online.

David Brooks also devotes his New York Times column to the Schiavo case this morning: "Morality and reality." In this column Brooks, like Bell and Cannon, assesses the contending forces. On one side are the social conservatives who believe in the intrinisic value of life. The weakness of this view, according to Brooks, is its failure to discriminate among "modes of living."

I think that the juxtaposition of Scott Peterson and Michael Schiavo, with their different outcomes, is striking. I've thought that for some time. Scott concludes by saying:

Brooks concludes with a kind of Clintonesque detachment in his reference to "that woman": "No wonder many of us feel agonized this week, betwixt and between, as that poor woman slowly dehydrates." The logic of Brooks's column suggests that he is in the middle of the debate that will shortly come to an end. Is David Brooks, like Sweden during World War II, a neutral in the battle he observes? And isn't the handwringing conduct unbecoming for a New York Times opinion columnist?

Thanks to RealClearPolitics for drawing my attention to the Bell/Cannon and Brooks pieces.

I highly recommend reading the whole piece.

David Adesnik finally weighs in on Terry Schiavo

I wondered by we haven't heard from David Adesnik on the Terry Schiavo case. He finally writes about it:

BLEEDING-HEART CONSERVATIVES: Let me sum up what happened while my wireless card was on vacation: Schiavo! Schiavo! Schiavo! There's no way I can do justice to the massive debate about this subject, so I'll just make three quick points. First, to my surprise, the most sensible column I read all week was by Charles Krauthammer. Charlie K writes that

Given our lack of certainty, given that there are loved ones prepared to keep her alive and care for her, how can you allow the husband to end her life on his say-so? Because following the sensible rules of Florida custody laws, conducted with due diligence and great care over many years in this case, this is where the law led.

For Congress and the president to then step in and try to override that by shifting the venue to a federal court was a legal travesty, a flagrant violation of federalism and the separation of powers. The federal judge who refused to reverse the Florida court was certainly true to the law. But the law, while scrupulous, has been merciless, and its conclusion very troubling morally. We ended up having to choose between a legal travesty on the one hand and human tragedy on the other.

This is just a terrible, terrible situation with no right answers. But even if one should err on the side of caution before taking a life, I think that the politicization of this issue by conservatives has been self-interested and short-sighted. On the other hand, I have been disturbed at the callousness of some of my liberal friends here at UVA.

I don't see why we need agonize over what the right thing is to do, when it is pretty obvious that killing Terry Schiavo is a crime, essentially, rather than upholding some goofy strict interpretation of a Florida state judge's supposed concept of what the law requires. David says more:

Here's how: My sense is that Democrats recognize that they have nothing to gain by taking sides against Schiavo's parents. The party already has an image problem when it comes to values, so even if they phrase all of their arguments in legal terms, they will still come across as the party that wants to pull the plug.

Moreover, I don't think that there is much at stake here. Although I'm waiting for Josh to write about the legal implications of the Schiavo precedent, shifting the case to federal court hasn't affected the outcome.

Speaking more broadly, I don't think that conservatives will be able to turn Terri Schiavo into a justification for restricting abortion rights or anything. Schiavo's case is simply too unusual. Then again, I could be very wrong because all of this is far outside of my area of expertise.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has put up a very interesting post on Schiavo guest-written by a disabled journalist-slash-activist.

Marc Cooper thinks that the Terry Schiavo is an Right-Wing Christian excess

I don't agree with his assessment, but Marc Cooper says he is sympathetic to the Schindler family, but thinks what has played out is another example of religious excess by the right-wing Christian block.

An Inglorious Finale

My heart is really broken by the Schindler family. As a father, I fully understand their sorrow, their desperation and even their self-delusion. I grant them wide berth in coming to terms with a horrifying reality. Who knows what any of us would do in a similar situation.

They first lost their daughter fifteen years ago. Not wanting to accept that cruel reality (who would?), they will lose her again…and this time definitively... in the next days or hours when the empty shell of her body finally succumbs.

That a claque of some really bizarre religious fanatics and some really cynical political opportunists have appropriated the Schindler’s personal tragedy for their own ends is not the fault of the family. I continued to empathize with them at one level while I opposed the entire, grotesque circus that has been mounted around them. The religious fanatics who used their own children today, sending them toward the hospice with cups of water in order to be detained by police, should themselves be arrested for child abuse.

My take is that the opposition to Terry Schiavo living is driven by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-religious animosity by the lefties and many Democrats in General. An exception was Texas Democrat Chet Edwards, who reflects the majority of Texas opinion by flying back to DC to vote for the Terry Schiavo bill.

Ann Althouse responds to Hugh Hewitt's lumping her with those who have Terry Schiavo die for legal reasons

I must admit that I thought that Ann Althouse was in the Glenn Reynolds camp where legalisams were more important than outcomes (I'm sounding like a liberal, when I talk about outcomes). Ann responds to that assessment of her:

Did I "join the caucus"?

Hugh Hewitt writes this about me:

Ann Althouse joins the caucus of those agreeing with the view that Congress either did not intend to keep Terri Schiavo alive pending a de novo trial, or failed to effectuate that intent, and thus that criticism of the federal courts is misplaced.

She also wrote:

Second, I never wrote about what Congress "intended," I wrote about the obligation of the courts to deal with the statutory text Congress produced. That text told the federal courts "determine de novo any claim" of a federal right. It did not say to give Schiavo "a de novo trial." People who would like to see the federal court redo everything the state court did, down to the appointment of Michael Schiavo as the guardian, keep saying "de novo," without focusing on what is to be done de novo. But, clearly, under the statutory text, it's the consideration of the federal rights.

I'm not pushing a particular outcome here. In fact, I'm sympathetic to the argument of erring on the side of life. But I'm trying to understand what Congress did and explain why so many federal judges have read the statute the way they did.

Finally, she says:

Why, seriously, does he think so many federal judges took the position they did? Why did the United States Supreme Court not intervene? Not one Justice wrote a dissent from the denial of certiorari. All these able jurists are just outrageously sitting back, flouting the will of Congress and allowing a woman to die? Does that make any sense? And do you really want your readers and listeners to think the judicial system is not grounded in the rule of law?

Marc Cooper doesn't think much of Ralph Nader's position on Terry Schiavo

Marc Cooper has a new post motivated by the strange bedfellows who want Terry Schiavo to live. It makes an interesting juxtaposition to have Ralph Nader and Randall Terry involved. Marc says (partly quoting Doug Ireland)--"Here's part of what pal Doug Ireland has to say on this"):

Now what does Ralph say in his joint statement with the dubious Mr. Smith? Among other things:

"A profound injustice is being inflicted on Terri Schiavo," Nader and Smith asserted today. "Worse, this slow death by dehydration is being imposed upon her under the color of law, in proceedings in which every benefit of the doubt-and there are many doubts in this case-has been given to her death, rather than her continued life."

I'm only half-surprised at this turn of events. Nader has often some social conservative views -- ones that I am quite comfortable with. But few public figures better understand and appreciate the role of courts in our society than Ralph Nader. That he should go off the deep end on this one might mean...he's gone off the deep end!--Marc Cooper

Powerline's Deacon agrees that federal courts ignored Congress's intent

Instead of a fresh review of Terry Schiavo's case, federal courts let her be killed by withholding food and water (the latter being more critical). The Deacon says:

I agree with Hugh. Congress intended (and said) that the federal courts would decide de novo whether Terri's federal rights were being violated. De novo review basically means a fresh review that does not defer to factual findings made by other courts. The federal courts prevented de novo review from occurring because they refused to stop the court-ordered termination, by de-hydration, of Terri's life. She will die before there is time for the de novo review mandated by Congress to occur. That would not be the case had the the temporary relief that was sought been granted. Thus, in my view the courts flouted the law that Congress passed.

Clayton Cramer now has weighed in again on Terry Schiavo

Clayton Cramer is sort of a pro-gun, pro-life, pro-traditional family values (in the usual codeword sense), with a libertarian bent. I'm not surprised where he stands on Terry Schiavo.

What Is The Goal of Law?

Instapundit observes, about the Schiavo situation: Congress enacted a procedural statute, in the hopes of getting a substantive result. But this point keeps getting missed. It's also worth noting -- as Ann does -- that the parents' case was simply quite weak on the law. I thought conservatives were supposed to care about the law, but I see a lot of people being as result-oriented as, well, liberals are supposed to be . . .

I would argue that there is nothing just about killing a woman simply on the word of her husband, who has reasons to want her dead, apart from his supposed concern for Terri's welfare. Recast this situation in domestic violence terms, and watch how quickly liberals would be justly angry at allowing Michael Schiavo to beat his wife.

Now, I understand that law is necessarily an imperfect attempt at justice, and I agree that there are going to be situations where following legal procedures exactly is going to produce unjust results. But the sentiments of Instapundit, and many others, seem a little more concerned about the following of legal procedure, and not enough concerned about the injustice of the results. The law exists to serve mankind, not the other way around.

Ed Morrissey says that the brothers Bush need to uphold the law

Ed Morrissey wants to save Terry Schiavo's life, but only be observing the law. That probably is the law professor's point (I hope). Ed says:

Governor Bush Must Uphold The Law

Now that the federal court has ruled against the Schindlers again this morning in their fight to save their daughter from death, Terri's supporters have renewed their calls for Governor Jeb Bush to step in and do something -- some say even if he has to break the law to do it:

...

We cannot allow our passions for Terri and the Schindlers to overload our respect for the law which protects us from an overpowerful executive branch. Reverend Mahoney calls for little less than an armed coup d'etat in Florida, one in which Bush would make both the legislature and the judiciary completely irrelevant by the use of force. I cannot imagine a more dangerous and terrible outcome from this tragedy than that, especially since in the end it will have only the effect of momentarily delaying Terri's torturous death.

Ann Althouse responds to the Ralph Nader statement

Ann Althouse now has a response to the Ralph Nader statement. This is the start of what Ann posted:

Why aren't Republicans and Democrats consistently compassionate?

What exactly did Ralph Nader say about the Schiavo case on "Crossfire" the other day? People keep emailing me about it. So, let's look at the transcript: NADER: I must say, I don't see a government interest in denying the parents their desire to take care of Terri. I don't see a government interest. I think that shifting the guardianship from Michael to the mother and father of Terri is the way to resolve this. Nobody knows what Terri would say. She was alleged to have said something, hearsay, to the side of the family of her husband. She didn't talk about feeding tubes. She doesn't have a ventilator. She doesn't have a heart pump. I don't see the government interest.

Ann's summary of what she thinks:

I'm not a Nader fan, but I can recognize a great question when I see it. I haven't seen much blogging about the Nader's contribution to the Schiavo debate, but, judging from the email I'm getting, people are focused on the fact that Nader took the side he did. I'd rather read answers, from Democrats and Republicans, that really try to face up to the challenging question he asked.

You probably need to read the whole thing to get adequate context.

The Belmont Club weighs in on Terry Schiavo

Wretchard, at Belmont Club (on his new URL), has a great deal more about Terry Schiavo, and ther reaction of Glenn Reynolds, and those like him. This is not the lastest word, but it is good to read, as it explains the law professors' nitpicking view:

Terri Schiavo

There are two ways to parse the Terri Schiavo deathwatch. The first is from the perspective of law and policy and the second political. Legal interpretations are best left to lawyers. We know that Glenn Reynold's believed, probably correctly, that the narrow Congressional intervention would not be helpful.

For Congress to pass a law aimed at a single individual isn't necessarily unconstitutional (if it were aimed at punishment it would be a bill of attainder, and those are unconstitutional, but it's not, so it isn't). But as Ann Althouse writes, that doesn't make it a good idea:

Congress ought to have given more consideration to the work of the state courts. And even if the statute is constitutional despite its singling out of one person for special, positive treatment, Congress ought to have felt constrained, knowing that it would not routinely give special treatment to other persons like Terri Schiavo. Its unwillingness to write a general law betrays a lack of commitment to any principle -- principle demands general applicability and not favoritism. And don't tell me it was too much of an emergency for it to be possible to draft a generally applicable law. Terri Schiavo's case has been around for years.

As a practical matter Reynolds was right. The Congressional action was rejected by the courts within two days and ongoing appeals before the Supreme Court are likely to be rejected as well. The 11th hour atmosphere was further heightened by developments challenging the factual underpinnings of the lower court's decision to stop feeding Ms. Schiavo. CNN reports:

In addition, in a petition by the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), a neurologist who examined Schiavo's medical records found she was "most likely in a state of minimal consciousness," rather than the persistent vegetative state previous doctors have diagnosed. According to the petition, the agency's board-certified neurologist, Dr. William Polk Cheshire, has information "that seriously challenges the diagnosis that Mrs. Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state," as courts have upheld.

Whether that will have any legal bearing on things remains to be seen. Andrew McCarthy at the National Review argues that none of the appeals have revisited the condition of Ms. Schiavo because they believed there was no need to. Since the appellate courts merely examined to the procedural fairness of the lower Court's rulings and refused to reconsider the facts on which they were based, it is not clear that Dr. Chesire's statements will have much bearing. They are out of the reckoning.

The majority ... was exceedingly deferential to District Judge James D. Whittemore, who, in turn, had been exceedingly deferential to state Circuit Court Judge George Greer of Florida. ... Whittemore had rejected a request for a preliminary injunction that would have reinserted Terri’s feeding tube while the case was heard on the merits on the ground that the Schindlers (Terri’s parents and the plaintiffs in her name) had not demonstrated a likelihood of success. To sustain that holding, the Eleventh Circuit majority did not need to find that Whittemore had been wrong but merely that he had not been so careless as to have “abused his discretion.”

Glenn Reynolds, like Ann Althouse, is a purist

While many of us are more concerned with the outcome of the Terry Schiavo matter than the process, the law professors are purists, and require that the process be perfect. Glenn Reynolds suggests that Congress could have enacted a law that stayed the process, but omitted that from what was finally enacted. Glenn and Ann both faullt the law, and Glenn thinks that the parents' legal case is weak. OF course, on strictly moral grounds, and because of the uncertainties over Terry's condition, I believe that they need to resume feeding her and giving her drink, if it isn't already too late.

Galley Slaves have more good stuff

I keep learning new things all the time about the Terry Schiavo case. Now, it is Jonathan Last, again, on Galley Slaves. He has a post about "How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo". He has a long quote from Eric Cohen, and goes beyond that. It is worth reading:

How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo

Eric Cohen's article on How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo is outstanding. First, he recalls the basic facts on the ground: In February 1990, a sudden loss of oxygen to the brain left Theresa Marie Schiavo in a coma and eventually in a profoundly incapacitated state. Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, took care of her, working alongside Terri's parents. He took her to numerous doctors; he pursued experimental treatments; he sought at least some modest restoration of her self-awareness. In November 1992, he testified at a malpractice hearing that he would care for Terri for the rest of her life, that he "wouldn't trade her for the world," that he was going to nursing school to become a better caregiver. He explicitly reaffirmed his marriage vow, "through sickness, in health."

Cohen then isolates the two primary questions in the case:

First, what would Terri Schiavo have wanted? Would she want to die rather than live in a profoundly incapacitated condition? Was Michael Schiavo's decision to remove her feeding tube an act of fidelity to his wife's prior wishes or an act of betrayal of the woman entrusted to his care? Second, what was Terri Schiavo's precise medical condition?

I think those are two fundamental questions. I am still skeptical that Terry (or Terri) can be saved, as there are powerful interests in the legal profession and judiciary that are trying to stop her being saved. It is odd that you have good people, including law professors, who are opposed to saving her.

Ace has some good stuff about Ralph Nader and Lanny Davis with respect to Terry Schiavo

Ace, at Ace of Spades HQ, has a long post. First, he quotes Ralph Nader, who thinks that Terry Schiavo should live. He also links to Lanny Davis, who questions why Michael Schiavo is so intent to have his wife euthanized.

Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, author of the award winning book "Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America" call upon the Florida Courts, Governor Jeb Bush and concerned citizens to take any legal action available to let Terri Schiavo live.

"A profound injustice is being inflicted on Terri Schiavo," Nader and Smith asserted today. "Worse, this slow death by dehydration is being imposed upon her under the color of law, in proceedings in which every benefit of the doubt-and there are many doubts in this case-has been given to her death, rather than her continued life."

Here is Ace with the Lanny Davis piece:

And Another: Lanny Davis, too, who wants to know why Michael Schiavo is fighting so hard to ice his wife.

Good question. It's so good, in fact, I've asked it six billion times. I've yet to hear a satisfying answer that doesn't involve this estranged husband "just wanting to spend years in court and hundreds of thousands of dollars to honor his wife's wishes."

Give me a f'n' break. Most husbands consider themselves princes if they remember a wife's birthday.

Thanks for the latter to OCBill.

One Robert Novak Republican would like to save Terry Schiavo

The Robert Novak Republican who would like to save Terry Schiavo from being euthanized is... Robert Novak. He has a piece that RealClearPolitics has on their site, although I imagine that it originated with a Creators Syndicate original work. He says that the politics in this situation are unusual. Democrat Chet Edwards, from Texas, flew back to vote for the bill to ask the Federal courts to intervene. At the same time, younger MSM journalists didn't think that they should have acted (the Powerline guys and Glenn Reynolds are in that place, as well). I agree with Robert Novak that the right thing to do is not kill her by depriving her of food and drink. That transcends some political point which seems important, but has nothing to do with life and death.

Kevin at Wizbang says that Terry Schiavo is going to die because her husband had better lawyers

I must agree with Kevin at Wizbang that Michael Schiavo's lawyers are better than his opponent's lawyers. That has been sufficient to see that she will die. Something extraordinary would need to happen to change that outcome.

This is a new bit of information that I had not known:

Exhibit #2) This morning Florida's Department of Children and Families missed an opportunity to legally take custody of Terri Schiavo. WFTS reports:

Wednesday afternoon, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer issued a temporary restraining order, preventing DCF from removing Terri from the Pinellas Park hospice where her life-sustaining feeding tube has been disconnected.

This morning at 8, DCF filed an appeal to Greer's order. When they did so, an automatic stay of the order went into effect, meaning that they could intervene.

The attorney for Terri's husband Michael (George Felos), who opposes any attempts to prolong Terri's life, said he suspected DCF wasn't aware of that stay until he had filed a motion for a new restraining order.

Legally Terri's family was never able to recover from that one day in court 5 years ago. Felos was just rubbing salt in the wound this morning as he continued his legal dominance...

Powerline on Maureen Dowd and Juan Cole

The Deacon has a post on Powerline about Maureen Dowd and Juan Cole's thoughts on the Terry Schiavo story:

Dowd and Cole race to the bottom

Which offering about the Terri Schiavo case is more foolish, this one by far-left professor Juan Cole or this one by the increasingly incoherent Maureen Dowd. Both argue the same thing -- that by passing a law authorizing the federal courts to review the Schiavo case, the Republican-dominated Congress has adopted the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and moved us closer to a theocracy.

Cole may fancy himself a terrific Arab linguist, but he is clueless when it comes American law. His argument is that the Republicans have embraced the Muslim fundamentalist practice of "using the courts to intervene in the private lives of others." What Cole fails to grasp is that the Schiavo matter was always a matter that the courts would decide, and had in fact been decided by the courts before Congress ever became involved. All Congress did was to authorize a different court to decide the matter. In my view, Congress should not have interfered. But Cole displays an astonishing level of ignorance when he claims this congressional action has caused courts to intervene in a private life in which courts hadn't previously been involved.

But at least Cole tries to locate his claims that Congress acted theocratically in a discussion of Muslim theology. Dowd's identical claim seems to be located only in hysteria she makes no attempt to hide (her opening line is "Oh my God, we really are in a theocracy"). Needless to say, Dowd never presents an argument as to how having the federal courts examine Schiavo's case constitutes the establishment of a theocracy. Now, I understand that Dowd has one of those endowed journalistic chairs, the occupant of which is never required to make an argument. But what would her argument be? That when people with strong religious beliefs try to add an extra layer of judicial review to make sure that innocent life isn't terminated based on erroneous factual conclusions, this represents a step towards theocracy? That's is an absurd position even by Dowd's standards.

What these people are saying is an example of the hysteria on the left that will kill Terry Schiavo.

I agree that we just don't what the facts are

Glenn Reynolds has a longer post, but I don't agree with where he seems to be coming from. At least he published a dissenting view.

I certainly don't know Ms. Schiavo's condition, as I'm not a doctor and haven't evaluated her -- not that that's stopping others. But I think it's absurd to claim, as many are, that a cabal of liberal judges wants to murder Terri Shiavo because it is -- in Peggy Noonan's absurdly over-the-top phrase -- "in love with death." To be fair, Noonan aims that phrase at others, really. But I think that many on the right have succumbed to hysteria here. This is a tragic situation, and it's been turned into a circus.

UPDATE: Reader Jean Tuttle emails: "Mr. Reynolds, I worked as a nurse in ICUs and ERs. I have no idea what kind of brain damage Mrs. Schiavo has ,but I find it hard to believe her EEG is flat.The patients I saw with flat EEGs couldn't breathe on their own, couldn't move or make any sound. As I said before I don't have any idea the amount of brain damage Mrs. Schiavo has, but I would bet the EEG isn"t flat. I think there is so much disinformation coming out of both sides of this ,that it is impossible to know what the facts are."

That last part is certainly true.

I believe in "doing the right thing" and I get irritated with things that are impeding that goal

The obviously right thing, based on almost no information, in Terry Schiavo case, seems to be to start feeding her and gving her water, and then to do one or more independent investigations as to her current state. The video clips seem to indicate that she is not "brain dead" and its hard to call it a "vegetative state", as I would imagine such a thing.

An article sympathetic to Michael Schiavo in the Gainesville paper, online

There is an article that paints the most sympathetic picture of Michael Schiavo that I have seen. I have trouble reconciling what it says with the several snippets of video that my wife and I watched on ABC. The article seems to paint Terry's parents and those who want to see her live as being not able to deal with reality. Michael Schiavo is such a great husband who has taken care of her well. He never would have been involved with abuse (so it says).

This matched Clayton Cramer's suggestion about Terry Schiavo

On the Weekly Standard website, there is a piece by William Anderson suggesting giving oral liquids to Terry Schiavo, as sort of a last chance thing:

Terri's Last Chance It's time to try giving Terri Schiavo orally administered liquids. by William Anderson 03/23/2005 12:45:00 PM

Hugh Hewitt has a good link to a neurologist's affidavit

Hugh Hewitt has a link to an affidavit that is really enlightening and, as he says, troubling, given the drive to kill Terry Schiavo:

Yesterday, Dr. William Chesire signed this affidavit, which presents a very troubling analysis of Terri Schiavo's condition.

Hugh has a lot more that would be worth your reading in his last post that includes this bit.

If you had any doubts, read Ed Morrissey's post

I just read Ed Morrissey's post that has more information about Terry Schiavo's treatment by her husband, the testimony by two of her nurses, and a lot more. This is long, but he has that much more that I haven't posted:

Media Matters Underscores Judge Greer's Capriciousness

I received an e-mail from Bart M this morning with the following message:

You published a link to a Michelle Malkin article which repeated a slime on Schiavo's husband. I suggest reading the following to appreciate just how scurrilous Ms. Malkin's opportunistic hit piece was[.]

The link was to this Media Matters post, and as you might imagine, I took the reference with a huge, Lot's Wife-sized grain of salt. Sure enough, our friends at Media Matters have the spin cycle going pretty hard trying to discredit the nurses who have brought affadavits forward regarding the behavior of Michael Schiavo during his guardianship of Terri Schiavo. Not only does Media Matters take all the news agencies to task for giving Carla Iyer airtime during this debate, they link to another affadavit from another nurse who corroborates Iyer's testimony, while claiming their testimony is "incredible".

Where do they get that idea? From Judge George Greer himself, of course:

Greer dismissed Iyer's charges, noting that they -- along with a similar affidavit given by Heidi Law, another nurse who formerly took care of Terri Schiavo -- were "incredible to say the least" and that "[n]either in the testimony nor in the medical records is there support for these affidavits as they purport to detail activities and responses of Terri Schiavo."

First, it's important to review both affadavits to see how dumb that argument is. Iyer specifically states in her affadavit that her comments to Terri's chart had been repeatedly removed, and Law says notes she provided the nursing staff routinely went into the trash. Both sworn affadavits corroborate the fact that Michael would not allow nurses to perform any kind of therapy for Terri in the period from 1995 to 1997, and the hostile attitude Michael had towards Terri. When two different people who worked with Terri at two different times give essentially the same testimony, a court should give some consideration to their presentation.

Clayton Cramer has an idea (and about all that is left)

Clayton Cramer has a suggestion about how to shift the Terry Schiavo story:

Non-Violently Saving Terri Schiavo

I see that another ten people have been arrested for attempting to take food and water to Terri Schiavo. Right idea; wrong scale. As long as the number of people prepared to break the law (and in this case, apparently just a trespass charge--the FACE Act only applies to places providing "reproductive health services" and religious worship) is small enough for the police to arrest, this isn't going to save Terri Schiavo's life. The use of violence would be politically unwise, and risks injury to others.

What if 1000 people attempted to take water to Terri Schiavo? How many police officers are there present to make sure that Michael Schiavo finds out "when is this bitch going to die"? If there are 25, they can arrest the first 50 or 100 protesters--but at some point, the number of police officers will not be sufficient to either transport arrestees to the police station, or to keep them under control once arrested. If 1000 people make this attempt in a period of ten minutes, someone is going to get through with a water bottle.

This is also about the power struggle between the courts versus Congress and the President

I've come to realize that the real fight, in the Terry Schiavo case, is the power struggle by the judges to retain their absolute right to decide what we do. In this case, the Congress and President seem to be intent on changing a ruling by this Florida court, and the court system, judges, and lawyers are intent on stopping them. The Powerline guys have most of what you need to know about this business. Again, if ANY of what was talked about on Hannity and Combs, last night, is true, then we are witnessing a crime being committed. Clayton Cramer has the absolute scoop on what was said. (You can also Google for "Michael Schiavo insulin" and you will know more than you wanted to know).

I heard what President Bush had to say today, about Terry Schiavo, and I believe that she is as good as dead

I'm angry about the whole business, but the courts and legal system are prepared to kill Terry Schiavo, and don't care a whit about the human factor. Most are pursuing some political agenda, and others think they are doing the right thing from an abstract legal perspective. The Republicans are split, to the left's great pleasure, as people like the Powerline guys think that Congress did the wrong thing to try and get someone different involved in the deal.

I suspect that President Bush will find a way to save Terry Schiavo

I may be wrong, and I don't know what mechanism he could use, but I suspect that President Bush will act, if no one else is willing, to save Terry Schiavo. I could be wrong, as he would pay a price for doing so, but I just sense that he is concerned that there be a reasonable outcome. He just needs to let the system (mal)function.

This is pretty dynamite stuff, it is credible

Clayton Cramer is one of us who want to save Terry Schiavo. I have not seen this reported in the places I hangout. Clayton starts off:

Fascinating Interviews on Hannity & Colmes Last Night

I was watching Hannity & Colmes on Fox last night, and my rage just grows at how liberals pretend that there are no serious issues with the Schiavo case. One of the guests was a nurse who cared for Terri Schiavo for more than a year. She has given a sworn affadavit (more than a year ago) that:

1. Terri speaks words such as, "Mommy," "help me," and "pain." She laughs at jokes.

2. Michael Schiavo, her husband, would ask, "When is this bitch going to die?"

3. On one occasion when she went into Terri's room after Michael Schiavo had been visiting her, she found an insulin bottle. (If you don't know this, one of the more clever ways to kill someone so that it won't usually show up in an autopsy is insulin injections.) Here's some discussion of this.

4. She claimed that at least two other nurses had filed sworn affadavits as to Terri's non-vegetative state--and Hannity confirmed that he had seen them.

They showed a videotape of Terri--and at one point, when she saw the face of her father, she smiled. This is a permanent vegetative state?

I have seen some of the video, and this seems real to me.

It looks like Terry Schiavo is as good as dead

We should have guessed that if Terry Schiavo's fate were left to the courts, she is as good as dead. With the Clinton years, and plenty more leftist judges (and Bob Novak-style big-business/small government Republicans put on the bench, there is about zero chance of saving Terry Schiavo. Too bad President Bush can't give her a pardon. He could do that for a criminal, but not for a severely and profoundly handicapped woman, who wouldn't be dying anytime soon, except for her husband's determination to kill her by removing food and water.

Reactions to the Terry Schiavo case

I do not understand those who want to rest on strict legalities in the Terry Schiavo case, and are ready to let her be killed. They include people I like, such as Ann Althouse and Glenn Reynolds. The general reaction is something like what Ann Althouse says:

As my first post on the Terri Schiavo case says, I avoided writing on the subject, but chose to break my silence to weigh in the subject of federalism, an area of professional expertise for me. After that, I read the federal court complaint and decided to provide a summary of it for my readers, who I didn't think would take the time to read and understand it. I followed up yesterday with a post about the district court decision -- really a tribute to the worthy judge. I did one more post, critical of Congress for groundlessly impugning the work of the state courts, which had put so much serious, hard work into the case.

Also, people keep calling this a "right to die" case, but it is more like a "right to kill" case, as we have no idea about what Terry would have wanted. Her husband has forfeited his right to speak for her, by his behavior since 1990.

People are starting to agree that the left's stand on Terry Schiavo is all about abortion

Jonathan Last, at Galley Slaves, has another good post on the Terry Schiavo case: "Why do they hate Terri?". He starts off:

Why Do They Hate Terri?

It's an important question. And make no mistake, in certain precincts of the left, people will not be happy until Terri Schiavo is in the ground. (If there is a silver lining here, it's that mainstream liberalism has not been perverted by the far left on the question of killing Terri Schiavo. Let's hope they continue to resist.) As I've said before, virtually every American controversy has two valid sides where well-informed people of good faith can disagree. The murder of Terri Schiavo is an exception to this rule. No person of good will could survey the facts of (1) Terri's condition; (2) the lack of evidence of her wishes; (3) Michael's malpractice suit testimony, post-suit behavior, and current compromised standing; (4) the willful and capricious determinations of Judge Greer; and (5) the testimony and availability of Terri's parents and still come to the conclusion that she should be murdered.

I almost posted the whole thing, but it would be better if you just went to Galley Slaves and read the whole thing.

"Jane Galt" has linked to some good info on Terry Schiavo

Megan McArdle (Jane Galt) has found some good information about a cat scan of Terry Schiavo's brain. This is from the CodeBlueBlog blogger:

THIS BRAIN IS NOT THAT BAD

Thanks to reader "primer" I've been directed to the University of Miami Ethics program website where they posted this image from a CT scan of Terri Schiavo's brain in 1996. The sentence attached to the link for this scan on the site says:

CT scan of Ms. Schiavo's brain, showing extensive cortical regions filled with spinal fluid.

If you go to this link you can see the scan in a larger reproduction.

I would recommend reading the rest, as it is dynamite, and really makes you wonder what is going on in this case. Was their trauma that induced the hydrocephalus?

I'm interested in how the media is playing the Terry Schiavo story

Part of the MSM, usually aligned with the left, is playing the Terry Schiavo story as theater and a human interest story. Just look at the sort of pictures and video that are being shown. This is from today's Minneapolis Star Tribune, online:

This sort of picture makes the story about her being in a "persistent vegatative state" look like a lie.

The rhetoric surrounding Terry Schiavo is getting shriller

Writers whom I admire and with whom I would often be in agreement are getting shriller by the post. This includes Marc Cooper. We can see what the real issues are. They have nothing to do with Terry Schiavo. She is just a political pawn in the "empire strikes back" scenario where the left is trying to stop the adminstration and their allies from winning another battle. This is about Tom Delay, in some minds, not about poor Terry. James Pinkerton has a good piece in Newsday about the changes that have occurred in the Republican party. The party of Bob Michael, Bob Dole, and Robert Novak has given way to the party of George W. Bush and conservative christians, primarily from the South and West. The value structure has completely turned around. Mark Steyn, on the other hand, compares the left with the Shakers. We know what happened to them. We have some interesting pieces of furniture, and little else.

Jonathan Last on Terry Schiavo and the left's desire to euthanize her

Jonathan Last, at Galley Slaves, has a good post about the left's fixation on euthanizing Terry Schiavo:

Schiavo and the Left

This is an important, defining moment for leftism. The Daily Kos has posted an entry about Terri Schiavo by Hunter. It must be read to be believed: You know what? Subpoena her. You called it, DeLay, Frist -- unless you're the biggest f***ing cowards on Capitol Hill (a pretty safe bet, ain't it?) I want you to haul that soulless body that used to be Terri Schaivo up to Washington, prop her the hell up in front of a microphone, tape a godd**n American Flag to her forehead and ask her your f***ing, s**-headed questions.

There is more, and it is bad. They admit to her being aware of her surroundings, and responding to stimulous, but because she is defective, she must die. I also believe that they somehow think it furthers the abortions rights cause to euthanize her in this particularly nasty way (removing food and water).

The Pew Charitable Trust: not so trustworthy

The truth, which I had suspected for a long time, has been revealed. The NY Post has an editorial about a revelation that the Pew Charitable Trust, probably through the medium of the self-proclaimed "Pew Research Center", was trying to influence public opinion, not measure it:

March 21, 2005 -- Reports in The Post last week con cerning the political activities of the supposedly above-the-fray Pew Charitable Trusts were, in a word, shocking.

A former program officer for Pew, Sean Treglia, was caught on videotape bragging about how the foundation worked behind the scenes to create the false impression that there was a "mass movement" afoot clamoring for campaign-finance reform.

The intent: to hoodwink Congress.

It worked.

Pew did this in the run-up to the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 — a.k.a. McCain-Feingold — by spreading around more than $40 million to grass-roots front groups like Common Cause, the Campaign Finance Institute and the inaptly named Center for Public Integrity.

They are saying that others were involved, as well, such as the Carnegie, Ford, and Soros foundations.

My current theory about Michael Schiavo

I now think that the reason that Michael Schiavo never divorced Terry is that he wanted the legal right to have her euthanized. If he gave up his role as her husband, he would lose that power. Otherwise, when he has another women, with whom he has had children, why would he have stayed married?

What I don't understand is the anger and hate about Terry Schiavo

Every leftist type I read seem to express an anger about the effort to save Terry Schiavo and a great deal of hatred for the people who are trying to save her. I suspect that the reason is that this is not a battle over Terry Schiavo, but another battle in the war between the left and the right. The left has lost so many battles, that they really don't want to lose another. Even Marc Cooper has increased the noise level over this issue, in revised post:

The Brain-Damaged. And The Brain-DEAD. [UPDATED]

What a disgraceful day for our body politic. Time to put it, not Terri Schiavo, on life-support. As if Schiavo’s status wasn’t horrible enough as is, the Republican congressional leadership -- with the inimitable and totally corrupt Tom Delay at its head -- squeezed that poor girl’s carcass for every ounce of political opportunism possible.

It wasn’t only a grotesque display of cynical grandstanding, but also a blatant act of disregard for the constitutional separation of powers.

Here was the awesome power of the U.S. House of Representatives being used to levy carnival-level subpoenas on a pathetic woman who has been brain dead for 15 years and who ought to have the right to pass on peacefully and with a modicum of dignity.

Joining in on this macabre spectacle was the Laughing Stock known formally as the Florida State House of Representatives—a claque of Babbitts that have squandered a full 1/4^th of this year’s entire legislative session on the Schiavo case. That’s the major problem facing Floridians in the year 2005?

In the People's Democratic Republic of Florida, they euthanize "defectives"

Apparently, Florida is competing with Nazi Germany is euthanizing defective people. Terry Schiavo, despite, or possibly, because she is severely and profoundly handicapped will be euthanized by a Democratic judge in Florida. I had thought that in America, we didn't believe in euthanasia for people, but I was apparently wrong. At least in Florida, they believe in it. They don't believe in executing murderers who committed a possibly heinous crime when they were younger than 18, but they do believe in killing severely and profoundly handicapped women (apparently).

Marc Cooper weighs in on Terry Schiavo

Marc Cooper doesn't like Tom Delay and the Republicans, and anything they do is liable to be bad, in Marc's opinion. Marc says:

Bottom line: Contrary to the hot air pumped out and off the House floor Friday, the disconnecting of feeding tubes – as painful as that decision might be—is one made hundreds, if not thousands times a year. There is nothing special about Schiavo’s case except for the publicity itself.

We are, alas, only imperfect humans-- not Gods-- and such a decision is never an easy one for anyone that it touches. That’s one reason why we have courts, an independent judiciary and respect for rule of law. Schiavo’s case has been litigated for years; it has been ruled on by a platoon of judges and appellate justices. And they have ruled in favor of her husband – a completely legitimate and rational decision that needs to be accepted.

That the scummy likes of Tom DeLay would intervene to politically showboat is absolutely repellant. The hubris with which he and his allies wield the Big Foot of government, bulldozing the courts and intervening into one family’s affairs, is no less than shocking. And I do not shock easily.

This crew—DeLay, the Republican leadership, the Florida House, and the Bush Brothers—are about as authentically conservative as John Kerry is a true embodiment of the working class.

Today was a day of national shame. And now Mr. DeLay says he will be back at again on Monday. I cringe.

This is one place where I would disagree. Yesterday, while I was at the hospital, I saw ABC news, and they showed video of Terry Schiavo. She is a living being, and is aware of her surroundings. My wife commented, again, that Terry Schiavo is more functional than one of my wife's former special education studends (10years ago). I still don't see the need to pull the plug on Terry, just for Michael Schiavo's convenience, and the convenience of his girlfriend, who is the mother of his children. Michael Schiavo has forfeited his right to make decisions about Terry, in my view.

Here is a lefty debunking attempt about Terry Schiavo

Gene Expression linked to Majikthise, and her post about why Terry Schiavo should be killed. It's just great, don't you think (not). You can get the gist of her tiatribe, as that is what it is (she is very angry at conservatives and Terry's parents). You can tell just how much of a lefty she is, as she says: "progressives":

Lies Terri Schiavo's parents told me

The Terri Schiavo case has transfixed the right wing media while attracting comparatively little attention from the left. This is discrepancy is understandable. Once you know the facts, there's very little to argue about. The case is literally a no brainer.

The Schiavo case presents no intricate medical, ethical, or legal dilemmas. Abstract Appeal's comprehensive legal chronology shows just how straightforward this case should have been. Michael Schiavo is Terri's legal guardian, the courts have determined that Terri wouldn't want a feeding tube, and Michael asked the doctors to take the tube out. That's really all there is to it.

The Terri Schiavo appeal is a vicious and lavishly-funded propaganda campaign. Terri's parents and their allies are using pseudoscience and character assassination to destroy Michael Schiavo. The right wing is eating it up.

If progressives don't counter these blatant misrepresentations now, the Terri Schiavo myths will be used against us for years to come.

Ace continues to be on top of the good stuff about Terry Schiavo

I learned a lot more about the Terry Schiavo case from Ace in his latest post. Ace says:

More on Suspicious Behavior

The inestimable Slublog is blogging the hell out of this, and he sends me this:

The immediate cause of Terri's brain damage was cardiac arrest, which caused her brain to be deprived of oxygen for more than five minutes. In January 1993, Michael Schiavo won a malpractice award of $1.6 million from the hospital that treated Terri. He was also personally awarded $600,000 for loss of consortium. In his testimony, Michael spoke of his love for his wife and his intentions to honor his wedding vows for the rest of his life and to use the award money for Terri's care and rehabilitation. Indeed, Michael repeatedly assured Bob and Mary Schindler that he would seek rehabilitation therapy for Terri once he had obtained a settlement.

A month after Michael received the money, the Schindlers approached their son-in-law to remind him of his promise. This led to a heated argument, with Bob and Michael yelling in the hall outside Terri's room. Michael stormed off and vowed that he was going to see his lawyer and that Bob and Mary would "never see [their] daughter again."

Michael Schiavo is even worse than I had realized. I have thought of him as Scott Peterson, after an unsuccessful attempt on his wife's life. There isn't evidence to back that up, or he would be in trouble. Instead, he has a Democrat judge in Florida who will let him finish the job (or do the job to begin with, with judicial sanction).

Ace has the scoop on Michael Schiavo

Ace says that Michael Schiavo has a major interest in seeing Terry die:

A man who has been involved with another woman for years and has sired children by that woman.

A man who was awarded $1.2 million in a malpractice case, and will no longer have to pay any expenses for Terri, other than funeral costs, once she passes.

The husband is not what you normally would call a disinterested party. Not generally the sort of witness whose testimony you'd take as the gold standard.

Even if you believe in the general proposition that one has a right to die, shouldn't we have minimal evidentiary safeguards as regards a person's declaration of such intent, such as signed Living Will specifying the circumstances under which he'd rather be allowed to expire?

Usually, you would expect the left to be up in arms to prevent a handicapped person, but not in this case. Ace has the reason nailed:

And I think further that many liberals assume that Terri Schiavo is just one of many right-to-die cases in which a person's autonomy is being challenged and thwarted by religious righties with an agenda. I think liberals are not really very well acquainted with the case; I think they are, understandably enough, simply putting in into the individual vs the state template, or the individual vs meddling

The New Donkey strikes back at Kos

The Daily Kos is ready to expell the DLC from the Democratic Party for being too moderate and criticizing leftist extremists (like Kos). The funny thing is that the New Donkey apparently was having second thoughts about his response to Kos. Here is some of his original response:

Beams and Motes Well, it was just a matter of time, I guess. Perhaps upset at occasional bouts of Sympathy for the Devil being posted on his own page, Kos of DailyKos has more or less called for kicking the DLC out of the Democratic Party for being mean to other Democrats. Or at least I have no other way of understanding today's characterization of myself and my colleagues as "the media's handy tool for Democratic bashing. Enemies of unity of the left. Self-important fools who exist merely to advance the other side's agenda." Nothing much ambiguous about that, eh? The crowning "outrage," apparently, is the recent suggestion by Al From and Marshall Wittman that maybe the leadership of MoveOn doesn't speak for the Democratic Party as a whole, a suggestion Kos chooses to interpret as a call for the party to "purge millions of supporters from its ranks." (Oh, yeah, Al also mocked bloggers; I somehow managed to get over it, down there in my basement).

Shortly afterwards, he turns around and waffles on what he had said. I am biased, but I thought that his original take on Kos was "right on". Where are the New Donkey's courage of convictions?

On Second Thought.... One of the inherent risks of blogging is that once you hit that "publish" buttom, it's Out There and you can't really take it back. My last post defending myself and the DLC from a tirade by Kos will likely earn me lots of emails and links deploring my involvement in this "fight" (vindicating the school-yard axiom that nobody really cares who hits first or hardest; the Assistant Principal will punish everybody). What I should have done is to link to the screed, and then quote Woody Allen's words to the Christopher Walken character in Annie Hall: "Excuse me, Duane, I have an appointment back on Planet Earth."

The New Donkey and I share an interest in NCAA women's basketball

The New Donkey has a post about "March Madness" and how he is only interested in women's not men's basketball this year. He is rooting for the Georgia women. My interest grew from living in Norfolk and attending ODU when Nancy Lieberman and Ann Donovan were playing there. We used to go see them play. Partly, we went to see them because this was the big thing happening in Norfolk and the time, and partly for the novelty of seeing big-time women's basketball being played live. At the time (1979-1980), ODU's big rivals were Louisiana Tech.

Marc Cooper on Lebanon

Marc Cooper is pretty radical. So much so that he is not willing to write off Hezbollah as just a terrorist organization. The military wing is just a part of a larger group which is part political party and partly almost a government that dispenses services to its people. I do not like Hezbollah, as they are too closely aligned with Iran for my liking. I also mean the mullahs in Iran, not the Iranian people, who are more like the people in the street in Beirut than they are like the mullahs. Marc says:

Lebanon Rises [Updated]

The BBC is reporting that today’s anti-Syria rally in Beirut was the largest in the history of Lebanon, drawing perhaps a million people.

That’s out of a national population of three-and-a half-million (the same population of the city of Los Angeles whose Mayoral election drew only 27% of voters).

After last week’s muscle-flexing by Hezbollah, it’s heartening to see the hundreds of thousands out in the street today demanding Syria’s immediate exit from Lebanon and the erasure of its local puppet regime. It was rather interesting last week to read the political commentary that was set off by the Hezbollah rally.

On the one hand, many on the Right wrote off the Hezbollah simply as terrorists. There is mostly definitely a central terrorist aspect to the group. But if that’s all they are, you think you might ask yourself why a half-million came out to support them. Hezbollah runs a vast network of social welfare facilities, sits in parliament, gives voice to the Shia and is a major political force in Lebanon.

On the other hand, some on the Left went to the other extreme and wrote off the pro-Democracy, anti-Syrian movement as simple stooges for the U.S. and Israel and displayed a rather alarming, sneaking sympathy at times for…yes… the Syrians. Perhaps they forgot that Syria originally intervened into the Lebanese civil war to crush the Palestinians.

I recommend that you read the whole thing, as this is an important issue and happening.

Austin Bay on the "Armed Liberal"

Austin Bay points out that September 11th, 2001 was the great upheaval, similar to the 1930's and 1960's, that has profoundly affected our era. He says:

This morning Michael Barone surveys the Democratic Party’s prospects (the link is to RCP).

This particular paragraph struck me:

In the New Republic, John Judis takes a longer view. Since the 1970s, he notes, Democrats have had little success expanding government. He blames this on international competition, the decline of private-sector unions and stronger business lobbyists. A revival of liberalism, he writes, “would probably require a national upheaval similar to what happened in the ’30s and ’60s. That could happen, but doesn’t appear imminent.”

I haven’t read the Judis article but I will (apparently the article requires a New Republic subscription).

But Mr. Judis’ national upheaval has already occurred—we call it 9/11.

9/11 marked the end of multi-cultural nostrums dear to the Democrat’s hard left. It marked the end of welfare states as we know them –now the strategic game’s either globalize or die. The “die option” bifurcates: either shrink and die slowly, or submit to a fascist tyranny with borders closed by violence.

9/11 also marked the end of Vietnam as a political syndrome. Defeatism, cynicism, and anti-military anger don’t sell.

We have entered the Era of the Armed Liberal. The smartest Democrats know this. The next successful Democratic charge will ride a Truman-Jackson “defense Democrat” horse—and the candidate will be a populist. The candidate (he? she?) will damn the Republicans for fiscal irresponsibility.

My wife saw the picture of Terry Schiavo and said "She's not comotose"

My wife is a special education teacher in the Dallas area. In the mid-1990's she was working with Middle school aged severely and profoundly handicapped students. She told me Sunday that one student of hers was less functional than Terry Schiavo seemed to be. If you had stopped feeding one of her tube-fed students, they would call it murder. How about Terry Schiavo?

In the 21st Century, murder and intimidation are not acceptable

If a people want to be considered part of modern civilization, in this 21st Century, they need to abandon murder and intimidation within their circle of influence. Charles Johnson has a good piece, at LGF, about a Dutch MP, originally from Somalia, who is speaking out about how women are treated. Her collaboraton, Theo van Gogh, was murdered for speaking out in this way. This is liable to turn into a war between modern civilization and those who would try to keep living in the 11th Century. This sort of thing transcends religion, as there are those from the Indian subcontinent who want to function the same way, and it is as wrong for them as for the conservative muslims.

Bipartisanship on fighting bankruptcy "reform"

Marc Cooper applauds the joint effort between those on the left and right to try and stop the new "bankruptcy reform" bill in the House. He also lists the "Credit Card Corps". Inexplicably, there is a list of Democratic senators who are normally would oppose something like this who vote for the bill, instead. Marc starts this way:

Bankruptcy Is The Right Word: Elephants and Jackasses Together At Last

Big Business has had its way with the Senate which passed the bankruptcy denial bill 74-25 on Friday.

For those who have been diddling themselves about the ascension of Howard Dean to Chair of the Democratic Party, be advised that eighteen of his jackass party Senators voted with the credit card and banking lobbies to deny millions of average Americans a way out of debt… and there ain’t nothing Dean can do about it.

Among those jackasses who voted with the shakedown lobbies were Democratic Minority Leader[sic] Harry Reid. Quasi-Democrat Jim Jeffords also went thumbs up. Also among the banking lobby’s stooges is West Virginia’s Robert Byrd—a petrified monument to pork who some dumbkopfs on the Left have been shamelessly celebrating because he mumbled some platitudes against the war. (I think Byrd was the keynote speaker a few months ago at the annual fundraising dinner of The Nation Institute—attendees ought to demand a refund).

Marc Cooper on anti-war strategy

Marc Cooper ordinarily doesn't side with MoveOn.org, but in the face of criticism about MoveOn not being aggressively for pulling out of Iraq now, in a radical anti-war stand, he sides with MoveOn against the leftist anti-war type who is so fixed in his ways, that he will only drag the left down further. Marc says:

Let me come clean by admitting that it’s not really fair to fisk a guy like Norman Solomon. Just ain’t a fair fight. Solomon is a drab and dreary and ultimately ultra-predictable lefty who writes a thinly-read media column.

So there’s a danger of knocking around a straw man by going ahead. But I’ve decided to do so only because I have gotten so many forwarded emails today from More Important People trumpeting Solomon’s latest piece.

These folks – who will remain anonymous for the moment—seem to think that Solomon is on to something in his chiding of the online group MoveOn.org. Anyone who reads this blog at all knows I have little regard for that group either – I find MoveOn to be mostly an echo-chamber, an online group therapy for liberals who think they are doing politics by participating in Internet campaigns.

But this time around, I rather reluctantly have to take MoveOn’s side. Solomon writes how “sadly” he feels about MoveOn not actively promoting a Troops Out Of Iraq message:

"With a network of more than 3 million "online activists," the MoveOn leadership has decided against opposing the American occupation of Iraq. During the recent bloody months, none of MoveOn's action alerts have addressed what Americans can do to help get the U.S. military out of that country. Likewise, the MoveOn.org website has continued to bypass the issue -- even after Rep. Lynn Woolsey and two dozen cosponsors in the House of Representatives introduced a resolution in late January calling for swift removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq…

I continue to read Marc's work, as despite being pretty far to the left, he is a thoughtful person who writes provocative and informative stuff.

The joys of one-party rule in Massachusetts

Massachusetts is a lot like Syria or Saddam's Iraq. They have one-party rule, and as a consequence you enter a never-land world where all sorts of weird stuff happens. Jay Tea, at Wizbang, has a post on prominent Massachusetts people and taxes. Apparently, the big politicos like to vote for taxes, but not pay them.

Massachusetts legislators are among the hardest-working in the country. They labor away tirelessly, day in and day out, searching for new things to pass laws about. Hardly a day goes by that they don't find something new to either tax or outlaw.

But perhaps they are working too hard. According to a recent Boston Herald investigation, six Massachusetts legislators were too gosh-darn busy passing new taxes that they didn't have time to pay their own taxes.

There's more, including Rose Kennedy that's worth reading.

Bankruptcy "reform" from the perspective of a former bankruptcy lawyer

Jane Galt has a link to "Wake Me Up On Judgment Day" (Dave Tepper ?), who was a bankruptcy attorney. My sense is that he speaks common sense:

My own views, though, are colored by my stint as a bankruptcy attorney. I’d estimate that half of my clients were just scraping by and only had just enough to file for bankruptcy—single mothers, single and married elderly people living on Social Security, and the like. (You can, in fact, be too poor to go broke.) Maybe a third to a half of my clients had recently suffered a medical setback. About 5-10% filed for Chapter 13, to pay back debts in arrears over time to save their houses. And virtually everyone who filed for Chapter 7 owned so little equity in their property that they were judgment-proof outside of bankruptcy anyway. So if you do the Venn diagrams or whatnot, I had very few clients who would even come close to being system-gamers.

As for the rest—you know what? People are stupid, sometimes. Or they make mistakes. Or they overestimate their ability to pay. It doesn’t make them evil or abusive; it makes them human. I’ve found that most people genuinely want to pay off what they owe, and the embarrassment that attends filing for bankruptcy is, I think, enough of a social cost for most people to avoid filing if they possibly can. There simply is no need to make it harder for the unfortunate to file.

Its worth your time to read the rest.

More Terry Schiavo

My question is why her "husband" wants her to die. What does he get if she dies? Is there insurance? He isn't really married to her in the sense that he has a relationship with one or more other women and has fathered children. Why can't he just divorce her and move on, leaving Terry for her parents, who genuinely seem to care. I have seen the video of Terry, and as I have written before, my wife was required to teach students in the early 1990's who were tube fed, and less aware than Terry is. I still have in the back of my mind that Terry Schiavo is the survivor of a murder attempt, and that the person responsible is trying to finish her off. I have nothing but circumstances and a gut feel to base that on, but her "husband" has acted extremely strangely, to my mind.

I hadn't noticed Zephyr Teachout's post on the Federal Election Commission

I had seen "FEC" on Zonkette (Zephyr Teachout's blog), but I hadn't made the connection with Federal Election Commission. The FEC seems to be a force for evil, not good, in the 21st Century. They harrassed the left in their attempts to do grass roots activism in the last election, just as they bothered the center-right. She has a good post that explores the issues surrounding the present activities of the FEC, and their impact on everyone. (It is odd how we on the center right have common ground with the extreme left at times). She says:

FEC talk tomorrow - - Abstract in progress

Here's the working abstract of the ideas I want to share tomorrow at Duke Law Journal's administrative law conference: The FEC has made some noises about looking over its rules in the next few months. However, these twitches at the corners of policy bely a fundamental crisis of character – what role does the FEC play in an era where the internet has changed the nature coordinated communication and the scope of political activism? This Article will look at how many of the core assumptions upon which the FEC was built have been undermined by mass use of the internet. The FEC’s noblest mission still stands – protecting government from being overly influenced by wealthy, self-interested parties. However, it is not clear that this mission is best achieved by continuing to play a largely regulatory, limiting role.

She has more to say, and as usual, it is worth reading the whole thing.

Gene Expression has a good piece about the Left and Creationism

Razib, at Gene Expression has a good post about Leftists and Creationism (or at least the issues surrounding evolution). He starts off:

An explication of assumptions

The Conflict Within - The Left's Version of Creationism has wended its way back and forth over the general path of the topic, but in the process, I think various issues have been confounded. So, this post is simply a review, or, an attempt to make explicit what I believe are background working assumptions (regular readers can probably skip this post).

But the whole point of it is that people like Richard Lewontin are not insufferable because they reject human biodiversity, in a "strong" form most intellectuals reject it out of hand, rather, it is because they reject evolutionary psychology by attacking human biodiversity! They know very well that there is some confirmation bias in favor of evolutionary psychology from the general public (it "makes sense" to most people), so they want to hitch its wagon to something that the public couples with rejection bias. This is politics, not science, and it makes good faith discourse rather difficult. ....

Let me finish with a quote from the Lingua Franca piece that Jason linked to a few months ago:

Lewontin, who married his high school sweetheart and can to this day be seen walking hand in hand across Harvard Yard with her, takes a much harder line. "I'm a man, and I don't go around screwing young girls," he says. "I'm human, and so I have to be explained."

This, from a man who has an M.S. in mathematical statistics.

I suggest you read the whole thing, as Razib, as usual, is very insightful.

Some people aim to stamp out religion

There is a segment of society, mostly on the extreme left, although our Objectivist friends also qualify, who want to stamp out religion. The difference between the Objectivists and the radical left is that the objectivists are principled and dont' go around making outrageous claims. Rob, at Say Anything, has a post about what Bill Maher and Ted Rall had to say on the subject. People like Bill Maher and Ted Rall are the guys with the bullhorn, and they are the ones that people notice:

Jackson’s Junction has some jaw-dropping video up today of Bill Maher and Ted Rall expressing their opinions about religion. Rall talks about being “offended” when President Bush ends a speech with “God bless America” and Maher calls the 9/11 attacks a “faith based initiative.”

Rob has more to say (read the whole post):

So how shocking is it when we hear some of the left’s loudest spokesmen speak about religion as though its practice in this country were a detriment to our society? They speak as though the peaceful Catholics or Protestants or Jews were in some way similar to the radical jihadists who seek to force they way of life on the rest of the world through violence and murder. Maher even goes so far as to say that religion has prevented many Americans from reaching something he calls “enlightenment.”