The GOP Really Stepped In It This TIme

Yesterday noon, the Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin outed Texas Governor George W. Bush on the fact that he passed a bill in 1999 giving hospitals the right to pull the plug on brain-dead patients who could not pay their medical bills. Of course it was after Congress had overwhelmingly voted in favor of allowing a federal court to decide whether brain-dead Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube would be reinserted. But better late than never. And at least the ugly facts that George W. Bush’s right-to-death legislation had flipflopped into a right-to-life media frenzy finally got into the pages of the MSM. I’ve been searching the ‘Net and cannot find another major mainstream newspaper that has divulged this two-timing, two-faced, double-think, hypocritical, cynical, black-to-white religion-steeped political switcheroo. But thanks to Froomkin, it’s finally out there. And Jon Stewart’s Daily Show was never better than last night when he took on the Bush administration and its sanctimonious use of a life-and-death case as political fodder. So the upshot is that the Bush administration gathered all its political clout, all the people who were willing to sell their religious beliefs to the highest bidder, everyone who would go on a tambourine-jangling roadshow to hawk their God for votes, and what did it get them? George W. Bush spent his considerable political capital (as he boasted he was willing to do when he was inaugurated this past January) and he got a judge who has refused to allow Terri Schaivo’s feeding tube to be reinserted in the service of politics, he’s created an electorate that is 60% against the Bush administration policies, a population whose majority does not want Social Security to be privatized, a population whose majority is against the Bush administration’s plan to cut Medicare funding, a population whose majority (including soldiers in Iraq) is against the war in Iraq, and a population that feels the federal government’s intervention in the Schaivo case was wrong, and totally wrong from the get-go. This is an astounding reversal of fortunes for an administration that’s been in office only two months. Way to go, Herr Karl. And some advice to the shit-for-brains outfit that is behind the Schaivo circus. 1) Do not put your trust in a crew that claims it will go to the Supreme Court to reverse Judge James D. Whittemore's decision. The case could not reach the Supreme Court for months and the star of the show will not be alive to be kept alive. 2) Do not put your trust in a group that touts a certain ignorant and incompetent Senate Majority Leader, William Frist, MD, as an expert medical witness. He says AIDs can be transmitted through tears. 3) And for certain, do not put your trust in a President who said on March 21, 2005, ""I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities.” But in 1999 he said, “hospitals have the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes.” Oh, and you can turn off the fog machine, Herr Karl. We see you all clearly.You’re nekkid as pushers in a strip-search and it's not a pretty sight.