Shame on them all!!

If anyone had doubts that the inmates are now running the asylum, they should certainly be laid to rest after the Terri Schiavo debate of the last twenty four hours! Sadly, we have now seen how far President George W. Bush and the Republican majority will go in pandering to right wing religious fanatics. They were perfectly willing to scrap the core constitutional tenant of separation of powers in the most banal, venal political convulsion we have witnessed in recent history.

While George Bush was governor of Texas, he signed a law that basically let the state override the wishes of parents and withdraw life support from a family member in a permanent vegetative state. Yet here was the master of hypocrisy and deception prattling on about “erring on the side of life” and using the anti-abortion euphemism “culture of life”—to shore-up his political base.

Then there was the spectacle of DOCTOR Bill Frist—who is also the Senate Majority Leader—diagnosing Terri Schiavo as NOT in a vegetative state. And how did Dr. Frist reach this diagnosis? From looking at television clips. I wonder how many Republicans and Evangelicals would accept that standard of care from their primary doctors? I also wonder how many of Dr. Frist’s colleagues in the medical profession would support that means of judgment?

Meanwhile, television’s talking airheads, Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough were assuring viewers that the majority of Americans support the position of Bush and Congressional Republicans. Of course Hannity and Scarborough have never been confused by the facts—and the facts are that in public opinion polls, Americans rejected the Bush-Republican position by margins of three and four to one. Shame on them all!!