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March 28, 2005
On What Happens Next
Let’s assume Terri Schiavo doesn’t have a miraculous recovery, and yes, I recognize that some people might be reading this after she dies. My question: what happens next?
The Blue Lefties are enjoying the fact that President Li’l Bastard’s popularity has plummeted during the past week, conveniently overlooking the fact that gas and home heating prices continue their fast march to the skies and the Bush Social Security plan is going over like a tuna fart in a hothouse. Not a good week for George, Son of George. No wonder he’s been hiding.
The Red Religious Right feels this is a rallying point. High on the fumes of past successes, their ability to count noses has been severely clouded. A lot of folks who consider themselves to be quite religious and very much pro-life are opposed to governmental or judicial interference in such matters. This could provide a continuing wedge in the Republican ranks, allowing Christy Whitman and her comparative moderates to steer their party back to its traditional values.
Wherein lies an opportunity.
I think what we’re going to see once all this is done with will be an other assault against judicial activists, even though all of the judges involved in the Schiavo case are doing nothing more than their jobs, upholding the laws as they are written. That used to be the very definition of a conservative judge. But just as we’ve taken the Weapons of Mass Destruction out from the Iraq equation and retrofitted it with non-secular democracy, the Red Religious Right will redefine the Schiavo issue as “activist judges shoving their Satanic laws down American’s throats.”
This assumes somebody doesn’t blow off the heads of Judge George Greer, Michael Schiavo and/or his lawyer, George Felos. I wouldn’t want to be holding the life insurance policy on any of those folks right now.
If there’s a real loser, it’s our nation’s hypocrite-in-chief Tom DeLay. Last week, Tom was poster-boy for the so-called pro-life movement. Now it’s come out that Mr. DeLay was all too happy to join his family on slapping a Do Not Resuscitate on his incapacitated father. And before somebody jumps to DeLay’s defense, what I said was a fact: pulling the plug is pulling the plug, be it a feeding tube or an electrical cord. Before: living being. After: Dead corpse. It’s okay for Tom to pull the plug on his daddy, but he thinks it’s horribly wrong for Michael Schiavo to do the same to his wife. Even some of the more pious in Texas’s 22nd District have to come to grips with the fact that ol’ Tom’s ethics are more than a bit elastic. After his pals in the Congress had to pass a rule revision to save his sorry ass from removal, this skeleton jumps out of the DeLay family closet.
And in 10 years, how will Terri Schiavo be remembered? Well, if history shows us a pattern, I ask you: do you know any good Helen Keller jokes?
Posted by Mike Gold at March 28, 2005 05:06 PM
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Comments
I do actually know a pair of (related) Helen Keller jokes, but they're in absolutely HORRIBLY bad taste, so don't read this if you have any sense of decency-in-humor.
You were warned
How did Helen Keller burn her ear? She answered the iron. How did she burn her other ear? They called back.
What can I say. I recognize that they're horribly sick, morally indefensible jokes...but I giggled for a good while when I first heard 'em :)
Posted by: Mike at March 29, 2005 09:09 AM
The opportunnity was lost decades ago. For the past 70 years the Dems (mostly statists) and the Pubs (mostly corporatists) have ensured that at a local level, new parties really can't form.
This has enabled the complete meltdown of the Democratic party, and energized groups that migrate to the Republicans, who might otherwise not be a part of them - Libertarians, etc, etc.
This, combined with the 'whip' system, where you need to follow party lines if you want anything useful to do as a senator or congressperson, we really don't have a functional Republic.
You're either working for George Soros or Big Oil... A gross exageration, but there is some truth to it.
Posted by: JR Judt at March 29, 2005 09:37 PM
One correction, not Big Oil for the Pubs - it's big agriculture and financial services.
Posted by: JR Judt at March 30, 2005 03:19 PM