Till Death Do Them Part?
Congress has granted Terri Schiavo a reprieve. In an extraordinary midnight session, the House voted 203-58 to approve a bill to restore her feeding tube--removed last week by order of a Florida judge--and grant the federal courts jurisdiction over her case. The Senate had earlier approved the measure on a voice vote, but some Democrats obstructed the effort to pass it the same way in the House, forcing Republicans to assemble a quorum for a roll-call vote. President Bush, up well past his bedtime, signed the bill into law just before 1:30 a.m.
Supporters of Michael Schiavo's effort to end his wife's life have asked how conservatives, who claim to believe in the sanctity of marriage, can fail to respect his husbandly authority. The most obvious answer is that a man's authority as a husband does not supersede his wife's rights as a human being--a principle we never thought we'd see liberals question.
But why do those of us who aren't right-to-life absolutists side with Mrs. Schiavo's parents, who want to keep her alive, over her husband, who wants her dead? It's a fair question, and it raises another one: What kind of husband is Michael Schiavo?
According to news reports, Mr. Schiavo lives with a woman named Jodi Centonze, and they have two children together. Surely any court would consider this prima facie evidence of adultery. And this is no mere fling; a sympathetic 2003 profile in the Orlando Sentinel described Centonze as Mr. Schiavo's "fiancée." Mr. Schiavo, in other words, has virtually remarried. Short of outright bigamy, his relationship with Centonze is as thoroughgoing a violation of his marriage vows as it is possible to imagine.
The point here is not to castigate Mr. Schiavo for behaving badly. It would require a heroic degree of self-sacrifice for a man to forgo love and sex in order to remain faithful to an incapacitated wife, and it would be unreasonable to hold an ordinary man to a heroic standard.
But it is equally unreasonable to let Mr. Schiavo have it both ways. If he wishes to assert his marital authority to do his wife in, the least society can expect in return is that he refrain from making a mockery of his marital obligations. The grimmest irony in this tragic case is that those who want Terri Schiavo dead are resting their argument on the fiction that her marriage is still alive.
Around the Bend in L.A.
Has Michael Kinsley hired Susan Estrich as a writer? The Los Angeles Times' editorial today on the Terri Schiavo case is so hysterical and over the top that we have to wonder. The law saving her from imminent starvation, the paper opines, "amounts to a constitutional coup d'état." We guess that means the Florida judiciary is the legitimate government of the United States.
The Times doesn't go so far as to mention Hitler, but it does say that "some social conservatives are happy to see the federal government acquire Stalinist proportions when imposing their morality on the rest of the country." So saving one woman from starvation is the equivalent of starving millions to death.
Then there's this: "So breathtaking was this attempted usurpation of power, . . . that Republican leaders in the end had to agree to limit this legislation's applicability to the Schiavo case." It's breathtaking in its extremely limited application!
Or how about: "This is the family law equivalent of the constitutionally banned 'bill of attainder,' legislation that seeks to convict someone of a crime." Yes, it's just like a bill of attainder, the only difference being that--well, it isn't a bill of attainder. It also bears an uncanny resemblance to a ham sandwich, only with legal language instead of ham and bread.
The L.A. Times is so loopy on this issue that the World Socialist Web Site looks almost sane by comparison.
The Green Mountain Persistent Vegetative State
"One major reason his party lost the 2004 race to the 'brain-dead' Republicans is that it has a 'tendency to explain every issue in half an hour of detail,' Dean told the semi-annual meeting of Democrats Abroad, which brought about 150 members from Canada and 30 other countries to the Toronto for two days."--Toronto Star, March 20
The Global Test
"You don't help yourself with other nations . . . when you refuse to deal at length with the United Nations. You have to earn that respect. And I think we have a lot of earning back to do."--John Kerry*, presidential debate, Sept. 30, 2004
"The United Nations is investigating 150 instances in which 50 peacekeeping troops or civilians in the Congo mission are suspected of having sexually abused or exploited women and girls, some as young as 12. Often, the victims were vulnerable, poverty-stricken girls engaged in what Congolese call 'obligation' or 'survival' sex. . . . Similar charges have been made about U.N. missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia, as well as Kosovo and Bosnia in Europe. The United Nations is also investigating reports of rape or sexual assault in Congo, including one case in which a French logistics employee was found with hundreds of videotapes that showed him torturing and sexually abusing naked girls."--Washington Post, March 21, 2005
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way promised 50 days ago to release his military records.
Kofi Gets Tough
"Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday will propose establishing new rules for the use of military force, adopting a tough anti-terrorism treaty that would punish suicide bombers, and overhauling the United Nation's discredited human rights commission, according to a confidential draft of a report on U.N. reform," the Washington Post reports from Turtle Bay.
The Post doesn't say what sort of punishment Annan is proposing for suicide bombers. Presumably the death penalty wouldn't pass the "global test," and in any case it would be redundant. ScrappleFace.com suggests prison, but the space between the bars would have to be really narrow to hold in the smithereens. Maybe he can arrange for them to be met in paradise by 72 U.N. peacekeepers?
Republicans Need Not Apply
Matt Drudge reports that Michelle Zipp has been fired as editor of Playgirl magazine for being a Republican. He quotes an e-mail from Zipp:
After your coverage of my article about coming out and voting Republican, I did receive many letters of support from fellow Republican voters, but it was not without repercussions. Criticism from the liberal left ensued. A few days after the onslaught of liberal backlash, I was released from my duties at Playgirl magazine.
After underlings expressed their disinterest of working for an outed Republican editor, I have a strong suspicion that my position was no longer valued by Playgirl executives. I also received a phone call from a leading official from Playgirl magazine, in which he stated with a laugh, "I wouldn't have hired you if I knew you were a Republican."
I just wanted to let you know of the fear the liberal left has about a woman with power possessing Republican views.
Playgirl is within its rights, of course, but we wonder if any of the liberals who've been defending Ward Churchill's "free speech" will speak up for Zipp. We're not holding our breath.
Spot the Idiot
Middlebury College, in Howard Dean's home state, has invited Rudy Giuliani to be its commencement speaker. In an unsigned article written using the editorial "I" ("I am continually amazed at what jerks the people who run this school are"), the Middlebury Campus, a weekly student newspaper, denounces the invitation:
In the school's press release they trumpet Giuliani's "achievements" as mayor of New York City. He reduced crime rates dramatically. He "rejuvenated" neighborhoods. He cut taxes. Bravo. This press release, understandably, represents the white New York elite's view of things--understandably because many of the people that call the shots here, the Trustees, are white billionaire New Yorkers.
This view of Giulani's tenure is racist. Why? Because the crime reduction that he achieved--and much of it was due to the overall drop in the use of crack cocaine during the 1990s and not his policies--was based on a campaign of brutality and intimidation against the poor and non-white inhabitants of the city. Even while police murdered an unarmed Haitian immigrant and sodomized a prisoner with a plunger, the mayor disbanded the New York City committee investigating police brutality.
Accompanying the article is a thumbnail photo of Hitler, which is especially strange since even this author doesn't actually compare anyone to the Nazi dictator. Our favorite bit, though, is the reference to police shooting an "unarmed Haitian immigrant." Presumably this is a reference to Amadou Diallo, whom police accidentally shot and killed in 1999. Diallo was from Guinea, not Haiti. To the Middlebury Campus, it seems, all black immigrants look alike.
A Lucrative Yob
Eighteen-year-old Carl Murphy was trying to break into a warehouse near Liverpool, England, when he fell through a skylight and injured himself. Now, London's Sunday Telegraph reports, he has cashed in to the tune of £567,000 (about $1.1 million) in a liability suit. He says he plans to buy "a few houses and a flash car."
He has 17 metal plates in his skull, and although he has convictions for robbery, burglary and assault, he blames his injury for his "behavioral problems":
"It annoys me that people think I don't deserve this money after all I've been through," he said. "I'm going to spend my money on whatever I want and everyone who called me 'Tin Head' can go get stuffed."
He complains further: "The papers just call me a yob and a thug because I've been done for robbery and assault but those were just silly stupid little things, like." One almost hopes he gets assaulted and robbed to the tune of £567,000, like.
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
"Homelessness Reaching Into Rural Areas"--headline, Associated Press, March 20
Why Don't Boys Get a Restraining Order?
"Girls Beating Boys in Every Area Before They Are Five, Study Shows"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), March 18
Is His Dad on Viagra?
"McGwire Mum on Steroids"--headline, Oakland Tribune, March 18
It's Not Over Till the Fat Lady Splits
"Wanted: A New Cheerleader for Opera"--headline, New York Times, March 20
The Accused Stood Mute
"Experts Question Reduced-Sugar Cereals"--headline, Associated Press, March 20
Where Did They Bury the Survivors?
"Pilot Ejects Safely After F-16 Crashes at Nellis Air Force Base"--headline, Associated Press, March 18
Don't They Have Skulls?
"Students Use Sport to Hide Brains"--headline, Guardian (London), March 19
Idiot's Delight
The "antiwar movement" doesn't seem to be going well. An e-mail list called the Idiot's Delight Digest, inspired by the radio show of the same name, carries a first-person account from one Jordan Hoffman of a rally apparently in New York:
I went to the anti-war demonstration today. Anyone else go? Man, it was depressing. It was more of a group mope than a demonstration. People just kinda went to the park, wandered around, looked sad and left. And got harassed for contributions to every organization under the sun. That made me even sadder because I couldn't join a friend going downtown because I only had $2.00 on my metrocard & needed that to get home and I have $0.00 in my wallet until next week. . . .
I gotta relax. It is 4:49 AM and I haven't been to sleep. I've been up all night stewing about how much I can't stand the direction the US's policy has taken--I still can't get over the fact that John Kerry lost. It's kinda like a delayed thing. I just can't believe how willfully dumb people are. Or maybe just mean. Mean and nasty. And covering it up, like ketchup on a burnt steak, with their bornagain Christianity.
Agence France-Presse, meanwhile, reports from London:
People poured into the capital from across the country, including 29-year-old human rights author Susanna Akono who travelled in a coach from Kent. . . .
Akono from Cambodia, who is married to a British man and is pregnant, said that she planned to go on a hunger strike from April 14 in protest against the continuing war on terror.
"I want to do everything I can to make sure my child has a secure future," she said.
Hat tip: Arthur Chrenkoff. Starve-the-fetus is certainly a novel method of ensuring that your child has a secure future. If Akono has a daughter, maybe she'll grow up and marry Michael Schiavo.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Christian Peck, Mark Van Der Molen, Marc Young, Don Surber, M. Gilbertson, Vincent Flynn, Michael Zukerman, Erik Moy, Ed Lasky, Ethel Fenig, Jack Archer, Rob Coleman, Kevin Schmidt, Bob Krumm, Rochi Ebner, Drew Anderson, John Merline, Daniel Goldstein, Brian Perry, Rosanne Klass, David Singh, Michael Segal, Bill Schumm, Peter Trombetta, Tom George, Michael Justice, Charles Black, Pete Drum, Samuel Walker and Scott Miller. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.) |
