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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SirVinny who wrote (677066)	3/27/2005 9:56:55 AM
From: E. T.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"Why don't you and yours knock it off with the "it's a religious right wing bullsh!t"?" Well then the religious right should stop saying they are calling in their political markers on the Shiavo matter. I sympathise with the parents, but it's a private issue that should be left to the courts and doctors and family. Watch the news, the parent's are surrounded with guys wearing monk(ey) outfits and heavy Jesus crosses hanging from their necks. POLITICIANS SHAMEFULLY EXPLOIT SCHIAVO FAMILY'S WOES Sat Mar 26, 8:25 PM ET By Cynthia Tucker -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last week, as Congress reassembled for an extraordinary incursion into a private family matter, an anonymous GOP strategist passed around a memo coldly appraising the political benefits of the Terri Schiavo tragedy. Cynthia Tucker "The pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue. ... This is a great political issue ... and this is a tough issue for Democrats," the strategist wrote. Similarly, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, spotted the political windfall in the misfortune that Michael Schiavo and his in-laws have struggled with for 15 years. Back in his home state, DeLay is under investigation for possible laundering of campaign funds and other alleged misdeeds that might lead to his indictment. He quickly linked his alleged ethical lapses to the Florida family's woes. Speaking last Friday to a group of conservative Christians, DeLay proclaimed, "One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America. ... This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others." So, according to DeLay, God visited a heart attack upon a 25-year-old Terri Schiavo to deflect attention from the legal problems DeLay would experience 15 years later. It's a wonder lightning didn't strike the stage from which he spoke. If there is any immorality in the controversy surrounding the severely brain-damaged Schiavo, it lies in the unconscionable tactics of politicians who have inflamed a family tragedy for their own short-term ends. The Bible speaks of people who would do such things -- and not kindly. Without Schiavo, President Bush (news - web sites) and congressional Republicans would have had to deal with a spate of bad news. While Bush has succeeded in changing the terms of debate about the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and focusing public attention on the shaky but hopeful start of democracy there, news closer to home has not been as amenable to his efforts at spin. The more he talks about his plan for privatizing Social Security (news - web sites), the less the public likes it. Polls show that more than half of Americans disapprove of his handling of the issue. His budget proposals have also hit a rough patch in a GOP-controlled Congress. The Senate, facing an outcry from Republican governors, rejected the president's plans for deep cuts in Medicaid, which pays for health care for the poor and is jointly funded by states and the federal government. Meanwhile, the budget deficit is a Red Sea that even Moses couldn't part. A recent survey of the National Association for Business Economics found that nearly a third of its members rate the deficit a bigger threat to the nation than terrorism. Terri Schiavo's husband and parents have suffered one of the worst sorts of family tragedy, one in which the beloved daughter and wife is lost but still present. Moreover, the difficulty of letting go has turned the parents against the son-in-law, to whom they were once very close. The last thing they need is a bunch of grandstanding politicians grabbing on to their calamity. It makes me sick. Of this you can be certain: None of those Washington politicians cares about Terri Schiavo or her grieving parents or her long-suffering husband. They don't know much about her case. (Much that they've said publicly about her diagnosis, including a potential for recovery, is wrong, according to all the physicians who have actually examined her.) The politicians' exploitation of a brain-damaged woman to satisfy a narrow constituency is downright sinful. story.news.yahoo.com