If the Executive won't act, he should at least have the decency to publicly wash his hands and beg off like the example above. He can even use the words "see ye to it".
Posted on 03/24/2005 11:02:42 AM PST by Destro
Posted on Wed, Mar. 23, 2005
GOP leaders unlikely to pursue new avenues to keep Schiavo alive
BY JEFF ZELENY
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - President Bush and congressional leaders said Wednesday they had exhausted their options and could find no new political avenues to prolong the life of Terri Schiavo.
"Now, we'll watch the courts make its decisions," Bush said at a news conference in Texas. "But we looked at all options from the executive branch perspective."
The president's brevity on the subject - devoting only a few moments to an issue that had overshadowed other domestic issues for days - suggested Republicans had decided to not aggressively pursue other alternatives or try to change public opinion in the case of the severely brain-damaged woman.
A CBS News poll released Wednesday showed that 82 percent of Americans believe neither Congress nor the president should have intervened. And among people who describe themselves as evangelicals, more than two-thirds of respondents said Bush and lawmakers should stay out of the case.
As criticism mounted from some strict conservatives over the decision of fellow Republicans to inject Congress into a state's rights issue, Bush defended the legislation, saying the government "ought to err on the side of life, which we have."
Still, the White House said explicitly the administration had no intention of taking the Schiavo case any further.
"There really are not other legal options available to us," said spokesman Scott McClellan.
The House Government Reform Committee canceled a hearing, which had been hastily arranged as a means to stop Schiavo's feeding tube from being removed. While Republicans planned to file another appeal when the Schiavo case reached the Supreme Court, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said lawmakers would not become deeply involved.
For days, Republicans have dismissed suggestions that their intervention in the case was rooted in politics, particularly to mollify anti-abortion and other social conservative groups. "The legal and political issues may be complicated, but the moral ones are not," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said last weekend.
But an audiotape obtained by CNN on Wednesday, featuring a speech by DeLay to the Family Research Council, offered another view. He said the case could be used to rally conservatives.
"One thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo," DeLay said, "to elevate the visibility of what is going on in America."
---
(Chicago Tribune correspondent John Biemer contributed to this report.)
Yeah, but the Schindlers' supporters did not like the outcome of the federal review.
Why can't Congress keep passing new laws until it gets the results it wants in the Schiavo case?
Yeah, I agree.
You can't threaten people's lives.
Leave that to the cult of death.
But the Nuclear Option is something within the power of the Republican Party, alone, acting all by itself, with 55 Senators, or 51 of those 55, to do.
One more time: not all of those 55 Senators agreed with the idea. At one point--briefly--we had 51 who thought it to be the one reasonable solution. Then we proceeded to convince a few of them that we were stark raving bonkers.
The Republican Party has run as the pro-life party for 30 years. Are we now expected to have to expend "political capital" to get REPUBLICANS to vote the platform they have campaigned on?
Not all of those Republicans campaigned on that platform.
So, explain to me how the brouhaha in Florida makes the Republicans unable to vote in their own caucus for their own platform.
Because some had conservative notions about the role of the filibuster and cloture in the Senate, and disagreed with the concept of the nuclear option as a result.
We are going to feel betrayed if the nuclear option is not exercised AND Terri is not saved.
Has anyone told you you're acting like a spoiled four-year-old?
Aside from me, that is?
Against the law, to threaten
someone's life, last time I
checked.
In over a thousand court actions over the past several yrs., the Schindlers haven't won one time.
It's over.
The Schiavo case is an emotional issue, so our emotions are running high right now. A few months from now, FR will go back to normal.
I was on the losing side during the Elian saga here in Florida, and emotions were running high at the grocery stores, at the gym, at work, at social gatherings. Republicans were against Republicans, friends against friends.
Then the election 2000 story broke, and all Republicans banded together again. And all my friends forgave me for my emotional outbursts a long time ago.
The betrayal is the waffling on the nuclear option.
What is going on with Terry Schiavo was a betrayal of life by the courts. But we already knew the problem was in the courts.
The Executives, US and Florida, DO have the power to intervene. But asking them to do that is indeed asking them to provoke a Constitutional crisis. If they choose not to, as apparently they choose not to, they will be diminished in the eyes of many in the pro-life movement. But that is not a betrayal by the Republican party. It is the weakness of men pulling back from the brink of confrontation.
It is the other thing going on in Washington, the Republicans in the Senate pulling back from the nuclear option that will change the judiciary to end this madness of abortion and imperial judicial overreach: THAT is the betrayal that is unforgiveable.
They haven't done it yet.
Maybe they will come through.
If they do, they will have done what they were elected to do and will have the full support of their pro-life Christian base. If they don't, they will lose the pro-life Christian base, because there is nowhere to hide anymore when you have the power and refuse to exercise it to fulfill your promises.
The Schiavo case is tragic. There is a right answer. Maybe the men involved don't see it.
Their weakness is eventually forgivable.
Failure on the nuclear option is calculated, and not forgiveable.
As well it should be.
Threatening people's lives is evil, and should be criminal.
Has someone been doing that here?
Whoever has needs to be shut down in a hurry.
Right. Both times in defense of inalienable rights for the individual.
"Has anyone told you you're acting like a spoiled four-year-old?
Aside from me, that is?"
Sure.
But it does not fit.
I am acting like a man who has worked for thirty years towards a goal, been promised something in election after election, contributed thousands of dollars to a cause, and seeing the people that I was instrumental - not solely, certainly, but instrumental - tear up their promise to me when it came to the moment of truth.
Were the Republicans who were disgusted with George H W Bush when he raised their taxes after pledging not to, and who stayed home and refused to support his re-election "spoiled brats"?
Or were they acting completely rationally.
Welching on promises and campaign platforms has consequences.
I note that even if those Republicans back then WERE spoiled brats, the GOP got the message: they have never backed a single pro-tax bill SINCE their bruising loss because Bush welched on his tax promise.
Here, the GOP haven't welched yet. They may still press the nuclear button and save the day. But after this week, there is reason for people like me to be legitimately angry.
Kind of like you don't know science - oh yea that's right - your kind killed scientists. Hyperbolic? 2 can play at it.
Sounds about right.
Your statement, quoted above, certainly conveyed that you were leaving and I offered my assistance.
The mom was just on with Hannity. She said no one is doing anything to help her daughter.
All the courts in FL several times over, the Gov of FL, the Congress of FL, the US President, the US Congress,the Fed Courts and the US Supreme Courts = no one?
"If the Republicans don't stand up and do the right thing, electoral disaster awaits."
Hillary has a chance then?
By the way, the entire Republican Party should not be held responsible for what the senate does. In fact, the responsibility for moving legislation and nominees rests with the Majority Leader. Frist is a weak one, in my opinion. Pressure him and hold him to account if he fails again on judicial nominees then asks us to vote for him for president in '08. I won't, that's for sure.
"It's mass hysteria fed by nuts and vultures circling around the parents."
Possibly being used even.
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