The survey also shows that 55% of Americans now agree with what I've been saying for a while: Republicans, which used to stand for limiting the role of government, are now trying to use the federal government to interfere with the private lives of most Americans. Well, okay, maybe they didn't specifically say that they agreed with that Lugosi guy, but at least we share the same sentiments.
Slowly but surely, people are coming to the realization that the Christian Taliban has taken over the party of Ronald Reagan. And what disgusts me is that this new generation of Republicans continues to invoke the late President's name even as they kick in our bedroom doors to make sure we're not doing anything more exotic than the standard missionary position.... And only then only if it's with our spouses.... Spouses of the opposite sex, of course.
One of the Republicans I'm most disappointed in is Senate Majority leader Bill Frist. Prior to getting into politics he was a respected heart surgeon in Tennessee. Apparently he's one hell of a doctor, because he was able to view a two minute video clip of Schiavo and announce that the woman was NOT in a vegetative state. Obviously the 50 neurologists that examined the woman in person over the years were all wrong. Thank God we had Frist on the case. I'm sure he was only thinking of Terri's best interests and NOT his probable presidential bid in 2008 which will likely draw heavily on the support of the self-righteous religious zealots who are to save us heathens.
One Republican I'm not disappointed in, however, is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The man is nothing more than an opportunistic, headline-grabbing slimebag. And if you have no expectations of someone to begin with, they can't disappoint you.
Still, you have to admire Tom's persistence. Even though the polls clearly show that the public soundly disagrees with Congress' involvement in the Schiavo case, he's not yet prepared to shut his yap. In fact, shortly after her death was announced last week, DeLay came out with one helluva sound bite: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Of course, he later denied that this was in any way intended as a threat against the various judges who reviewed the case.
No, of course not. Why would anyone get that impression?
And what about the time 17 years ago when DeLay allowed doctors to "pull the plug" on his own seriously injured father? Is Tom going to have to answer himself for his own behavior on that one?
More likely his apparent threatening non-threat was a desperate bid to divert attention from his assortment of alleged ethics violations. Either that, or an outburst brought on by rabies. Actually, if he does turn out to be rabid, that would explain a lot.
What's wildly amusing is that the Republicans are blaming Sciavo's death on liberal activist judges. This ignores the minor detail that it's not the judges who were activist in this matter; after all, they did nothing. In other words, if they're guilty of anything, it's of being inactivist judges. It's the concise that was "activist" in this case, venturing into something that should have remained the most private of family matters.
What's more, many of the judges who reviewed the Schiavo case were conservatives to begin with. Judge Stanley Birch of the 11th circuit court of appeals, who wrote the opinion blasting the resolution passed by Congress, was appointed to the bench by the first President Bush in 1990. Also on the 11th Circuit is William H. Pryor, temporarily appointed to there by George W. himself. He had ample opportunity to disagree with his colleagues but didn't. And it was Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, who rejected the appeals to the Supreme Court.
So much for the evil liberal judges theory.
Still, perhaps the Republicans were motivated by nothing more than Terri Schiavo's best interests, and critics are simply misinterpreting that as political opportunism. A plausible theory? Perhaps, except that right at the height of the Schiavo hysteria a talking points memo that was being circulated among GOP legislators surfaced. It specifically talked about how to best gain political capital among the religious right by talking about the case. But then a number of conservative bloggers began to say that the origins of the memo were suspicious, and that it was actually forged by Democrats out to make the Republicans look bad.
As it turns out, the Republicans don't need any help from their opponents to look like opportunistic bastards. It seems that the origins of the mysterious memo were finally traced to the offices of a freshman Republican senator from Florida, Mel Martinez.
I'm sure all those conservative bloggers are now tripping over one another trying to issue retractions.
Remember what Ron Reagan Jr. said during the eulogy for his father last year? "Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man. But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians; wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly killed early in his presidency he came to believe that God had spared him in order that he might do good. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate, and there is a profound difference."
Too bad they don't make Republicans like that any more.
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