Well, not really, but I thought it made for a catchy title…
Okay, so here’s what I can’t figure out about this Terry Schiavo business. According to pretty much every poll that has been conducted since the case so rudely shoved the Michael Jackson trial off the top of the Big List of Useless News, solid majorities of Americans oppose state intervention in Mr. Schiavo’s decision to remove his wife’s feeding tube. Even a poll by Fox News showed respondents coming down 3 to 1 on the husband’s side.
My question, then, is why, in the face of this overwhelming public opinion, have Republicans in Congress made such a noisy spectacle of themselves defending Mrs. Schiavo’s parents’ legal manueverings? Why did President Bush make an emergency return to the White House from his ranch in Crawford, TX to sign the unprecedented legislation the Congress passed, forcing the case to the federal level? This is, after all, the guy who couldn’t be bothered to cut short his vacation for impending terrorist attacks, the invasion of Iraq, or the massive Indian Ocean tsunami.
To the surprise of pretty much no one who has taken a rational look at the case, federal courts have found no reason to to interfere; nor did any of the Flordida state courts that have heard the case before them. Nonetheless, Republicans in droves are falling all over themselves trumpeting Mrs. Schaivo’s “right to life,” accusing her husband of all sorts of nefarious motivations.
Is this simply a case of craven political opportunism? That explanation doesn’t make much sense to me. True, there is a noisy minority clammering for government intervention (oddly enough, these are the same people who usually scream about the evils of government intervention, but I’ll leave that for another post…); however, given the aforementioned poll results, I don’t see how this gains the party anything with the public. Of course, they could be standing on principle, but you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not entirely convinced by that explanation either, given that hardly anyone in the House or the Senate showed the slightest interest in the subject prior to its arrival on the front page and the cable news talk shows.
So… what? Perhaps the Republicans are pandering to the Christian Right, as suggested in this article from The American Prospect. As the author points out, parts of Bush’s second-term agenda aren’t going very well <coughsocialsecurityreform>, and those on which the administration is making progress don’t help them out with their religious conservative base. Here they have an opportunity to quickly jump on board a cause that the godmongerers like, pass some legislation that, aside from the possible long-term erosion of citizens’ Constitutional rights and the separation of powers, will have no actual effect, and then wash their hands of the whole thing.
I find that answer fairly convincing, but another occurred to me as well today, especially when I read the following quote from the President:
This is an extraordinary and sad case, and I believe that in a case such as this, the legislative branch, the executive branch ought to err on the side of life, which we have. And now we’ll watch the courts make its decisions.
This statement was reiterated by White House spokesperson Dana Perino Wednesday, using almost exactly the same wording:
As the president said yesterday, he believes that in a case such as this, the legislative branch and the executive branch should err on the side of life.
The part of that statement that strikes me is the unspoken suggestion that unlike the legislative and executive branches, the judicial branch does not err on the side of life, but rather on the side of death. Perhaps what we are seeing here is an attempt by Republicans to not only pander to the Christians, but to set up the judiciary for yet more attacks on “unelected, activist judges.” I can see the political ads now: “First they say abortion is legal, then they say The Gays can get married, and now they’re euthanizing sick people. Something must be done to stop this out-of-control, renegade branch of government. Call your Senators and tell them to support President Bush’s judicial nominees now!”