Turning Point

In an interview in Vanity Fair, several Bush aids are pointing at Hurricane Katrina as the turning point of the Bush administration (September of 2005). According to them, the American public lost faith in Bush during his botched response to the storm, and the President never regained the public's trust after that.

An interesting theory, but wrong. As I've said before, the big turning point actually came in the spring of 2005 during the Terry Schiavo case.

You may remember her as the woman in Florida who was in a vegetative state, and who's family became embroiled in a bitter battle over whether to disconnect her feeding tube. The then Republican Congress got involved and passed legislation seeking to keep her on the feeding tube. President Bush, in a dramatic gesture, hopped on Air Force One and flew from Texas to DC to sign the legislation. He did this even though he could just as well have signed the bill while at his ranch where he was vacationing at the time.

Americans in general were horrified by this exhibition of political opportunism. Many of us have had to deal with such decisions within our own families. It's an intensely personal and--yes--difficult choice to make. And while it was unfortunate that the Schiavo family could not arrive at a consensus on their own, the United States Congress and the President had absolutely no business getting involved.

It was during this tragic circus that most sensible Americans finally realized that the Republican party had gone too far in pandering to the lunatics of the religious right. It was also the moment that began the downfall of the Republican party and led to their eventual loss of both Congress and the White House.

Election Eve

The picture below (didn't turn out nearly as well as I had hoped) was the scene outside the Vienna, Virginia Metro station this morning. There was a super-sized mob outside the entrance sporting signs of various sizes for Jim Webb, the Democrat Senatorial candidate running against incumbent Republican George "Macaca Head" Allen.

Shortly after I took that photo, I recognized my own Congressman, Frank Wolf, emerge from the crowd and head for the parking lot. Wolf is a Republican, so I'm guessing he was there campaigning for himself rather than on behalf of Webb. As he walked by, I said something along the lines of "I'm surprised to see you in this crowd." Wolf just smiled, jotted down my license plate number, and said the IRS would be in touch with me.

Wolf was first elected in 1980, the same year as Ronald Reagan. He's been pretty popular in the state of Northern Virginia and usually gets re-elected with well over 60% of the vote. Democrats rarely succeed in running a significant opponent against him.

But in keeping with the anti-Republican tide sweeping the nation this year, recent polls show Wolf leading by only five percentage points. His challenger is Judy Feder, who is a Dean of something or another at Georgetown University. If Feder manages to pull out a victory, it would be a major upset.

Personally I've routinely voted for Wolf in the past, but not this time. He lost my vote during the Terry Schiavo circus last year. Although the congressman was out of the country and didn't vote to continue her life support, he later said that if he had been present, he would have. If only he had kept his mouth shut, Wolf would still have my vote.

The two signs on the right are for Tom Davis, also a Republican. Davis is a shoe-in to be re-elected. His district and Wolf's border on one another in the Vienna area, which explains why one often sees signs for both in the same area.

Later in the morning I was at the metro station again when a guy with Allen literature approached me. I told him I wasn't interested, and that I considered Allen to be an embarrassment for Virginia. The guy replied, "Webb is the one you should be embarrassed by. He's a pornographer." I asked if this was in reference to Webb's books, and he said yes, that the books were pornography.

All of a sudden I wished I were Darth Vader, and that I could just use The Force to make this guy's head explode like a melon.

I pointed out that the books were NOT pornography, that they merely contained a couple of sex scenes. Then I asked the guy how he "got here." He hesitated and said he drove. I said, no, that's not what I meant. Then I went in for the kill and told him that the reason he was here, on Earth, was because his parents had sex at least once. The guy then mumbled something about that being different and walked away.

Incidentally, earlier I made reference to the "state of Northern Virginia." The Washington Post recently had a good article about the differences between the state's northern counties and the rest of Virginia. Basically, it says those of us up here identify much more closely with DC than with Richmond, the state capital. It goes on to say that given the profound differences in politics, values and priorities, there are essentially two Virginias.

And as far I'm concerned, George Allen can stay down in HIS Virginia.

A New Low, Even For Rush Limbaugh

As you are no doubt aware, actor Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's several years ago. After dropping out of the public eye, he has since re-emerged in a series of campaign commercials on behalf of candidates who favor stem cell research. Missouri is one state that has the ads, and they have also aired in Maryland. To be quite frank about it, Fox does not look good in the ads as the Parkinson's has obviously progressed.

Now just in case anyone has become overly concerned about the Back to the Future star's declining health, conservative commentator and world reknown prescription drug abuser Rush Limbaugh has weighed in with his own medical opinion: Fox is faking his symptoms.

Says Mr. Limbaugh:

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act....This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

If anyone would know about taking medication, it's Limbaugh. He's had plenty of experience. Thank God he was able to expose Michael J. Fox as a faker. In fact, he's probably been faking Parkinson's for the last ten years, just biding his time and patiently waiting for the right moment to produce those fake ads. And even if it turns out he's NOT faking, well, it's always fun to mock the terminally ill.

It's also good to know that if any of us ever need an expert medical opinion, we can call Rush. The man is so good at making diagnoses, he doesn't even need to actually see the patient!! Guess he studied under Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who so famously analyzed a videotape of Terry Schiavo and concluded she wasn't in a vegetative state.

I'm not sure, but I think I may have a hernia. Maybe I should take a picture of my scrotum and send it in.

Bush Admits To Failing The American People

In a surprising move President Bush has admitted that he misled the American people on the need to invade Iraq, that the invasion was launched with insufficient troops to secure the borders and maintain order, that administration officials had absolutely no clue as to what to do once Saddam was deposed, and that all these factors combined to create an atmosphere of total chaos in which tens of thousands of people have unnecessarily died.

Bush also concedes that immediately after the September 11th attacks there was a tremendous amount of goodwill and sympathy throughout the world, and that he completely squandered all that international support by invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. Bush went on to say that he now realizes that he became cocky after the tremendously successful attack on Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, and that this attitude of invincibility contributed to what has become a fiasco in Iraq. He also now says that the diversion of resources and attention to Iraq has allowed the Taliban to make a resurgence in Afghanistan.

The President further acknowledges that his intervention in the Terry Schiavo case a year ago was nothing more than political grandstanding, and that the entire Republican party should be thoroughly ashamed for its actions in the matter. He goes on to say that the Federal government vastly overstepped its bounds in what was an unfortunate family dispute that should have been resolved locally. Bush says that as President, he should have had the cojones to stand up to the Christian right, which has now taken over the Republican party. As a result of that takeover, adds Bush, the GOP has lost sight of the fact that it once stood for having a smaller, less obtrusive Federal government.

Bush also admits that by overseeing the explosive growth of the federal government during the last four years--as well as the ever-exploding size of the deficit--he has betrayed the ideas espoused by Ronald Reagan.

The President goes on to accept the argument that the warrantless domestic spying program he started is wrong, and suggesting that it could have prevented the 9/11 attacks is nothing more than another lie. In fact, says Bush, those attacks could have been prevented if officials had been more focused on the warning signs popping up in the months before they killed 3000 people. That goes for both officials in his own administration who ignored intelligence reports, as well as leaders at the FBI who ignored disturbing reports from field offices about middle eastern men training as pilots.

Additionally, Bush admits that he dropped the ball on New Orleans. He had a duty to be more involved in the unfolding disaster even before Katrina hit, and that afterwards he should have immediately stepped in when officials became overwhelmed, both by the magnitude of the unfolding tragedy, and the absurd bureaucratic hurdles that kept popping up. After all, added the President, saving human lives shouldn't be dependent on getting signatures in triplicate on a requisition form.

In short, Bush now admits that he is a nincompoop.

APRIL FOOL!!!!!!!!

Bill Frist, Humanitarian Extraordinaire

In the past I have made derogatory comments about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. This was especially true during the Terry Shiavo circus last spring when Frist offered his expert medical opinion based on a videotape of her. Quite frankly, I was wrong to do that. I do not have a medical degree, and thus do not have any expertise to judge whether he was offering an educated diagnosis based on that video, or simply exercising crass political opportunism in an effort to suck up to the Christian right.

I have also made snide remarks regarding Frist's questionable stock sales which seemed to suggest he had illegally obtained inside information.

For all this, I need to publicly apologize. As it turns out, Senator Frist is an extremely generous man of science. In fact, he actually runs an AIDS charity that last year took in $4.4 million in contributions.

Indeed, Frist is such a humanitarian that his charity paid out almost half a million dollars in consulting fees to two companies. The fact that both those firms are run by a longtime fundraiser for Frist is nothing more than a wild coincidence. Oh, and the additional trivial detail that one of the two companies is also jointly run by the wife of a fellow Republican Senator? That's also purely by chance.

Of course, any such charity will also need lawyers, and for that Frist hired the law firm of Jill Holtzman Vogel, who just happens to be married to Alex Vogel, who in turn happens to be Frist's personal attorney.

I guess that whole six degrees of separation thing should really be reduced to, oh, one degree.

Vote Early And Vote Often

Virginia is one of two states electing a new governor today, and I carried out my constitutional responsibilities by voting. Needless to say, I voted for the entire Democrat ticket.

I did so for several reasons: First off, I'm still bitter about what the Republicans did during the Terry Schiavo circus last spring. The entire party should be ashamed of themselves for getting involved in what should have remained a private affair. But that is to be expected when a formerly great political party is hijacked by religious zealots hellbent on turning this nation into some sort of theocracy based on their interpretation of the Bible.

The second reason can be summed up in one word: Bush.

Third and most important are the candidates for governor themselves. Democrat Tim Kaine is eloquent and well-spoken and not someone I would be ashamed to have as the leader of my state. Republican Jerry Kilgore, on the other hand, comes from southwest Virginia and has the accent to prove it. Whenever he speaks, I can't help but think of the Beverly Hillbillies. I don't know what his educational background is, nor do I care. He could be Harvard educated and I still wouldn't have voted for him because of that accent. In fact, my greatest fear is that if Virginia suffers some sort of calamity--a category 5 hurricane, a major terrorist strike, an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, an asteroid impact, a nuclear power plant meltdown--that kills thousands of people, Jerry Kilgore would be the one appearing on worldwide TV before billions of viewers. And I don't want four billion people getting their first impression of Virginia from someone who sounds like Jethro.

As for the important issues which will ultimately decide this race.... Well, I have no idea what they are.

Book 'Em All, Danno

The investigation into the CIA leak case is expected to be concluded by the end of the week, and indictments are expected. The investigation thus far has focused on White House advisor Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby. The question at hand is whether CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was deliberately leaked to the press in an effort to get back at her husband, Joseph Wilson, who had publicly questioned some of the evidence used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Now comes word that Cheney himself gave Plame's name to Libby, who in turn may have leaked it to the press.

Personally, I don't see what the problem is. If Wilson had the audacity to question the Bush Administration's motives, he must be an unpatriotic commie. Heck, he should be shipped off to Guantanomo Bay and force to participate in the annual naked human pyramid tournament!

This renewed focus on the legitimacy of the war comes at a bad time for Bush since the total of American troops killed just hit 2000 earlier today.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, the scandals don't end there. New evidence has surfaced in the investigation of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's questionable stock sale a few months ago. Frist, who is a heart surgeon and world renown expert on diagnosing brain damaged patients via videotape, ordered the sale of all his shares in his family's medical business shortly before the release of a bad business report. The problem is, however, that those shares were supposed to be in a blind trust, so how would Frist have known whether he even owned any shares? He claims it was purely a coincidence.

New documents, however, indicate that Frist was routinely informed of stock sales and purchases by the trustees. If true, this would defeat the purpose of a blind trust and raise serious ethics questions, as well as potential conflict of interest issues.

Then there is the ever lovable Tom DeLay, who was the House majority leader until his indictment a few weeks ago on money laundering charges. Last week he was booked and fingerprinted in Houston, which always looks good on the six o'clock news. But that's okay, because DeLay is now out on bail and back in Washington writing laws the rest of us have to follow.

Bill Frist: Balls O' Steel

Prior to being elected to the Senate in 1994, Bill Frist was a highly respected cardiologist in Tennessee. Someone like that is obviously a well-educated, principled man of science. But when he became Senate majority leader a few year's ago, and especially after his despicable, opportunistic behavior during the Terry Schiavo circus this spring, it became clear that Frist had allowed himself to be emasculated by the Christian right. In his zeal to win over the evangelical wackos of America and use their support in a 2008 run for the presidency, Frist had apparently turned his back on science.

That's what makes today's announcement that he will support the stem cell bill currently before the Senate all the more remarkable. In so doing, Frist has told both President Bush--who continues to oppose federal funding of stem cell research--and the religious nutcases seeking to return this nation to the dark ages to go piss up a rope.

It is not yet clear what effect this break will have on Frist's quest for the Oval Office. Bush, for his part, says he respects Frist's decision, even though he probably would like to send the Senator off to Guantanamo for a few rounds with the guard dogs. And the Christian right? Well, they're understandably upset that someone would dare embrace science, when it should be perfectly obvious to everyone that diseases are caused by evil spirits and can be cured by nothing more than prayer.

Their chief argument against embryonic stem cell research is that it, well, destroys fertilized eggs. To them, that is a worse sin than allowing someone to slowly die of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, the complications of Diabetes, or a host of other gene based diseases. What makes their opposition to such research even more mind-boggling is that these same surplus embryonic cells would otherwise be discarded--incinerated or otherwise disposed of--by fertility clinics. If they're going to be destroyed anyway, why not put them to good use, for crying out loud?

Frankly, Senator Frist, I'm impressed. It's not every day a man finds his balls again.

Schiavo Autopsy Results

Remember the Terry Schiavo story from March? She was the Florida woman who had been in a vegetative state since 1991. When the courts finally gave her husband the okay to pull her feeding tube, Schiavo's impending death became a circus that rivaled anything ever produced by Barnum & Bailey's. Religious zealots descended on the hospice where she lay, and Republican politicians flushed their "less government" principles down the toilet as they tripped over one another pandering to the Christian right. Congress passed legislation seeking to postpone the inevitable, and Bush hopped on Air Force One to fly to DC to sign the bill. And once the tube was actually pulled, protestors kept getting themselves arrested as they tried to enter the building with glasses of water. At one point, dancing bears may have been involved, but I'm not sure.

Following her death, the Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner conducted an autopsy, and the results were released earlier today. Not surprisingly, it shows that she had "massive and irreversible brain damage." That damage included the vision centers of her brain, thus rendering her completely blind. Overall, her brain was about half the size of a normal one. The report also says that the "damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

Curiously, Senate Majority Leader (and a licensed cardiologist) Bill Frist failed to determine all this when he conducted an in-depth examination of a two minute videotape of Miss Schiavo, and declared that the 50 doctors who had previously examined her in person were all wrong. On the other hand, he scored valuable points with the evangelicals that now control the GOP, and that's all that matters when you're an opportunistic little weasel.

The Price of Arrogance

It's been a rough few weeks for the Republicans.

Their downward spiral started last month when they decided to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case. The overwhelming majority of Americans correctly thought that politicians were meddling in matters that were none of their damn business.

Unable to take a hint, House majority leader Tom DeLay decided to make threatening remarks against the judges involved in the case. He later called his choice of words "inartful," whatever the hell that means.

Speaking of being inartful, the term would also seem to describe DeLay's continuing denials that he took trips paid for by lobbyists. But according to yesterday's Washington Post, there are credit card receipts proving otherwise.

The one bit of good news for DeLay: President Bush has reaffirmed his faith in the embattled congressman. On the other hand, that's kind of like the Captain of the Titanic congratulating the First mate for getting the lifeboats in the water so quickly.

And over on the Senate side, majority leader and brilliant surgeon Bill Frist is also busy pissing people off. The struggle is over rules governing filibusters, a form of debate which requires 60 votes (out of 100 members) to bring to end. There are several judicial nominees of Bush's that the Democrats continue to block; Frist wants to end the filibuster option for nominees and allow for a straight up or down vote. A new survey, however, shows that 66% of Americans oppose changing Senate rules just to accommodate the psychopaths that currently control the chamber.

Not content to drop the matter, Frist appeared in a videotaped message to a group of conservative Christians. Frist claims the Democrats' filibusters are targeting "judicial nominees of faith." Gee, and I thought they were just targeting members of the Christian Taliban who are seeking to impose their values on everyone else.

The job of judges should be to interpret laws as they are written, not to transform America into some sort of theocracy.

And then there's John Bolton, Bush's nominee for Ambassador to the U.N. Numerous former coworkers of his have come forward with disturbing tales of his verbal abuse and attempts to have them fired or transferred when they disagreed with him. Bolton is an obvious lunatic, but again Bush has reaffirmed his faith in the man and his principles.

Yeah, and O.J. is handy with a knife.

Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994 with promises to reform what many called the "Imperial Congress." Instead they succeeded only in reaching a level of arrogance in ten years that took the Democrats over five decades to achieve.



P.S.
Solar has reprinted a great article about the Unitarian Jihad. I was so inspired by the piece that I signed up, and will henceforth be known as Brother Gatling Gun of Enlightenment. Those of you so inclined can get your own Unitarian Jihad name here.

Does Tom DeLay Have Rabies?

My faith in my fellow Americans--deeply shaken when they reelected George W. Bush--has been partially restored. A new survey shows that a whopping 76% of the public disapproves of the way Congress intervened in the Terri Shiavo case, while slightly more than half disapprove of Bush's handling of the matter. I'm not sure how you can separate the two; After all, the President made a big production of flying back to DC so he could sign the bill in the middle of the night--but I'll take what I can get.

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.

And So It Ends

Finally, she is at peace.

Schiavo Update

Earlier today Terry Schiavo's parents lost another legal appeal with a federal appeals court in Atlanta. This time, however, one of the justices made a point of commenting that last week's attempt by congress and President Bush to circumvent the state courts of Florida was unconstitutional and "demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people."

Meanwhile, recent polls show that as much as 82% of Americans think it was a mistake for Congress to go poking its nose into what should have remained a private family matter. Perhaps even more surprising, 62% of evangelical Christians feel the same way.

Of course, the poll numbers aren't stopping the wackos that continue to protest outside the hospice in Florida. They have been growing increasingly frustrated and angry, and the situation is now detoriating to the point of death threats. Yeah, that makes sense. What better way to demonstrate your love for the sanctity of life than by killing someone.

A number of protesters have been arrested for trespassing when they tried to enter the building with glasses of water to quench Terri's thirst. And what, exactly, were they hoping to accomplish if they actually made it inside and to her room? Pour it down her throat? She can't drink water. She's beyond unconscious, with zero brain activity. She would only end up drowning, and her would-be savior would end up being charged with second degree murder, first degree stupidity, and third degree irony.

But the best story has to be the one about Michael Mitchell, who drove down all the way from Illinois hoping to "liberate" Schiavo by kidnapping her from the hospice. Unfortunately, he tried to rob a gun store using a box cutter. That in and of itself is a bad idea, since gun store owners tend to have access to, um, guns. Mitchell fled out the back door when the gun store owner unexpectedly pulled out a... GUN. Mitchell was later arrested.

It wouldn't surprise me if he also turns out to be a creationist.

By the way.... A lot has been written about Terri Schiavo and how she has spent the last 15 years in a vegetative state, unconscious and oblivious to her surroundings. But prior to that she was a vibrant human being much like you and me, and the Washington Post has done a nice piece on what that person was like.

______________________________________________________

A Final Rhyme
One Last Time
If there's a tumor in his head,
he's gonna be dead.

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It's All Relative
Scientists in China are going to tag the country's remaining giant pandas. This will enable biologists to better track the animals' movements and prevent inbreeding.

Hmmm.... Prevent inbreeding? Maybe someone should tag the people of West Virginia.

Hypocrisy Alert

One of the principle architects of last week's extraordinary decision by congress to get involved in the Terry Schiavo case was House majority leader Tom Delay. It's no secret that poor ol' Tom has found himself at the center of a number of ethics related controversies over the past several months, and some of his critics have suggested that his sudden interest in Schiavo's welfare was nothing more than an effort to divert attention from those problems.

Why, that's just horrible! How can people be so cynical!?!? Mr. Delay's motives in defending Terry Schiavo's right to live are rooted in his strong religious convictions, and his firm belief that people are entitled to live regardless of the severity or hopelessness of their medical condition. Delay has even denounced the pulling of Schiavo's feeding tube as "an act of barbarism." How much more noble can a man be, defending a complete stranger like that?

Well, er, apparently noble enough to pull the plug on his own father.

It seems that in 1988, Charles Delay--Tom's father--was involved in a terrible accident. Doctors advised the family that given the extent of his injuries, there was no hope for recovery and would remain a "vegetable" for the rest of his life.

Even though there was no living will, the Delay family decided that Charles would not have wanted to live that way. Consequently, when his kidneys began to fail, the decision was made not to hook him up to a dialysis machine, and nature was allowed to take its course.

That old adage, "Do as I say, not as I do," would certainly seem to apply to Tom Delay. Of course, he claims that his father's circumstances were completely different, and I suppose that's true: There were no hypocritical Congressmen screaming about acts of barbarism while shamelessly looking to score points with evangelical groups.

A Prayer For Terry

There is perhaps nothing more difficult in life than having to decide the fate of a loved one who has become incapacitated. Ideally, all the various family members can come to an agreement without resorting to name calling, finger pointing, wild accusations, and outside intervention. And usually in such circumstances, everyone can eventually agree that, in the light of overwhelming medical evidence, it's time to let that person go with whatever dignity they still have left.

However, in the case of Terry Schiavo, fate is not providing her with a simple exit. That poor woman, on top of everything else that has happened to her in the last 15 years, has now become some sort of political football to be tossed about by political demagogues.

When Terry's husband and her parents could not come to an agreement, the courts became involved. That was bad enough, but the state's judicial system eventually decided that she should be allowed to die.

Not satisfied with this outcome, the the Florida state legislature and governor Jeb Bush began sticking their noses into what should have a private family affair. Ultimately the courts slapped them down as well, saying it was none of their damn business. Even the United States Supreme Court twice decided not to get involved.

Thus it was on Friday afternoon that Terry's feeding tube was removed. Finally, it seemed, her ordeal would come to an end. But such was not to be case, as now the Republicans in Congress have decided to save her by pushing through a bill turning the whole mess over to the federal court system. President Bush, not one to pass up an opportunity to grandstand, flew back from his Texas ranch yesterday just so he could sign the bill into law. Sure, he could easily have done that without leaving Crawford, but this way was much more dramatic.

And why have they done this? Why would the Republican party, which once upon a time proudly stood for a less intrusive federal government, get involved in a matter that the state of Florida had finally--after much debate and legal wrangling--reached a conclusion on? Simple: It was a golden opportunity to appease the Christian Right.

At this writing, a federal judge is pondering whether to order the feeding tube reinserted. And regardless of what he eventually decides, the losing side is certain to appeal, and the case will drag on further.

Yes, Terry Shiavo deserves our prayers.... Prayers that God will protect her from the opportunistic politicians trying to save her.