Living in a Representative Hypocrisy. Either Way, Terri Loses and Delay/Bush Win.
By Anthony Wade
March 22, 2005
The sad, sad truth about Terri Schiavo is that she cannot win in this case. Maybe she can get a stay of execution but in the long run her story has been hijacked by powers that serve only their own greedy interests and in reality, care very little about the person behind the story. Today a judge ruled in favor of TerriÂ's husband Michael and somewhere, Tom Delay is smiling.
Harsh you say? LetÂ's face facts. This cause celebre championed by Tom Delay over the past week was never about Terri Schiavo. Delay took on the cause because of two reasons. First, it would allow a distraction from what was a mounting avalanche of ethical problems threatening to finally nail Â"the hammerÂ" and secondly, and more importantly, it was an issue that Tom Delay could not lose on. Similarly for George Bush.
The facts are that since the election there was a fall out between the base of BushÂ's support, evangelical Christians, and the administration. Seeking to shore up his base, Bush has been salivating over finding a red meat issue he could throw to this base. Enter Terri Schiavo the latest poster child for the cause of life. Here is what made taking up this charge so unique to Delay and the GOP and why they could not lose.
Option one has the efforts of Congress succeeding and forcing the reinsertion of the feeding tube. The GOP would get to declare victory, say they saved TerriÂ's life, and paint the democrats as being on the side of death. In a leaked GOP talking points memo, it was clear that this issue was brought up for political reasons as the memo indicated that the GOP should talk about Schiavo because it will Â"excite the pro-life baseÂ" and is a Â"great political issueÂ" that is a Â"tough issue for democrats.Â" Under option one, Bush gets to play his favorite role, as the cowboy, rushing to the rescue. To portray that part we saw Bush flying back to DC the other night to sign the legislation that could potentially save Ms. Schiavo. Never mind that flying back was completely unnecessary in reality as the bill could have easily been flown to him for signature and the end result would have been no different. Where would the cliff-hanging drama be then though? The right-wing media machine has already played this angle up, painting Bush as needing to rush back to DC in the night, to protect life at all cost. Unfortunately, as is true with a lot of drama, there is little truth behind the fluff.
George Bush had the audacity to look in the camera the next day and say that we should Â"always err on the side of life.Â" What Mr. Bush must be forgetting is the fact that he signed a law in Texas in 1999 that allows hospitals to decide, against the wishes of families, when to terminate life sustaining services. Now, Bush did cow-tow to the pro-lifers back then and added a clause that allows a ten-day grace period for the family to find an alternate service provider, but in the end if you are poor, there is only death. The reason for this is that the real motivational factors behind the decision for the hospital can all too easily be financial. The bottom line for the hospital is if the patient cannot pay, then the case needs to be analyzed to decide if life sustenance needs to be continued. The mitigating factor then is money, period. Last week a six month old child named Sun Hudson was killed by using this law. The fact is that the mother did not have any other options because she did not have the money. The hospital tried to paint Sun as needing death for mercy, but the mother has stated differently. As she puts it, the hospital just gave up on her son, after only six months.
So, in Tom DelayÂ's own state of Texas there is a law that allows the extermination of life, based on money, but he had to try and save Terri Schiavo. George Bush wants us all to believe in his clever catch phrases, such as Â"culture of lifeÂ" but the realities are so much more graphic. Here is the Â"culture of lifeÂ" that George W. Bush represents:
There are currently 40 million Americans without health insurance.
This lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year.
Since Bush has taken office, 5 million more people have joined the ranks of the uninsured.
Bush has just proposed billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid.
Bush has just proposed cuts to State ChildrenÂ's Health Insurance Program.
These cuts will affect one in every six Americans and one in every four children.
The SCHIP cuts alone would render 1.2 million children unable to access the system.
Bush has changed the regulations to allow corporations to increase their mercury pollution by instituting a ridiculous cap-and-trade policy. Here, companies can either clean up their own outfits and then sell, for profit, their unused pollution allowances to other companies who over-pollute, who then become Â"cleanÂ" by using other companies pollution standards (I am not making this up, I swear).
BushÂ's new budget significantly reduces funding for the Women, Children and Infants (WIC) program, designed to combat low birth weight.
Sun Hudson was killed last week, by a law George Bush signed into law, which favors the hospitals (corporations) over the people.
That is quite a track record of hypocrisy. It does not end there though because all the hypocrites have lined up for their fair share of the Schiavo pie. Tom Delay himself has actually marshaled a budget resolution through the House of Representatives which would cut Medicaid by at least 15 billion. The Senate restored the funding but Delay, the bastion of social consciousness, has vowed to stall the entire budget process if he does not get his cuts. Guess what pays for Terri SchiavoÂ's medications? Medicaid.
Another whore lining up at the Schiavo trough is Bill Frist who is fancying himself a champion of the Terri cause to any media who will pay him attention. When Frist is not pretending to be full of righteous indignation he is busy championing his other cause, tort reform. Frist has been fighting to set limit caps in lawsuits for some time now and if he had his way, people like Terri Schiavo would never be able to recover any punitive damages, no matter how severe the case is. It is this ability to sue for damages that won Terri the one million dollars 15 years ago from her medical malpractice lawsuit. These monies are what have brought Terri to the point she is at today. It has paid for her medical care but if Bill Frist had his way, Terri Schiavo would never have had the ability to seek those damages. Your Representative Hypocrisy in action.
There was a second option though that Bush and Delay had to weigh before playing this farce. The second option is why Tom Delay is smiling today. The GOP knew that even if the judge ruled against them, and there was a good chance they would, then Terri Schiavo becomes a martyr to be used continuously as a reason to Â"reign in activist judgesÂ" or again paint themselves as the champions of life. The fact of the matter is that there are real legal problems with what Delay and Bush tried to do in this case. There are real reasons why we have separation of powers. As John Conyers has said about this case, Â"By passing legislation which wrests jurisdiction away from a state judge and sends it to a single preselected federal court, we will abandon any pretense of federalism. The concept of a Jeffersonian Democracy as envisioned by the founders, and the states as "laboratories of democracy" as articulated by Justice Brandeis will lie in tatters.Â"
For a party that seems to cry for states rights a lot, the GOP sure seems to be in a bit of a paradox here. By inserting itself into a personal matter of one citizen, and trying to undermine how our system ruled, the GOP is setting a dangerous precedent. How many other Terri SchiavoÂ's are there in America? This administration does not care though, about anything other than political expediency and its true agenda. While the country was wrapped up in worrying about the Bush social security scam, we saw Congress pass a horrific slave-labor bill masquerading as bankruptcy reform. Never mind that it only amounts to a handout to companies such as MNBA Â- one of the largest contributors to Congress. While we were all looking away today at the plight of Terri Schiavo, ANWAR drilling was approved by your Congress. This is the politics of distraction and the GOP knows how to play it quite well. Next up on their agenda is to destroy the 200 year old Senate procedure of filibustering so they can nominate the 5% of BushÂ's judicial nominees that were just too extreme. Do not look too hard at the righteous indignation of those who weep for Terri Schiavo while they pull the plug on Sun Hudson. There is maneuvering behind the photo-op. There is a talking points memo somewhere they desperately do not want you to know about. The cold hard fact is that Terri Schiavo probably means more to Bush and Delay dead, than alive.
My personal belief is that the feeding tube should be reinserted, but I understand that we live in a system of government that has certain rules. This drama has played out for fifteen years and is the most litigated case of right-to-die in our history. There are too many people lining up on the side of Bush-Delay screaming about the sanctity of life while looking the other way on Sun Hudson. They say that there are differences between feeding tubes and ventilators. They scramble for any reason to avoid having to stare at the truth. The truth is simple here. If you are on the side of life, then you must denounce the killing of Sun Hudson, period. Life is life. The problem that so many face in doing that is that then they are forced to have to admit to the glaring hypocrisy of the people they support so rabidly.
George Bush does not believe in a culture of life. He needs to tell you that he does and because his words do not match his actions, you should know the truth. Sun Hudson was killed last week in Texas because his family had no money. Next up on the killing list is a 68 year old grandfather named Spiro Nikolouzos. His family wants him to be kept alive; the hospital wants to pull the plug. The issue is always money as the family believes the hospital reached this decision because the Medicaid funding was running out. Where are George Bush and Tom Delay? In dramatizing the Schiavo case this week we saw the following quotes:
"We should exhaust every avenue before we take a life of a human being," - House Majority Leader Tom Delay.
"Everyone recognizes that time is important here. This is about defending life." - White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
Â"We should always err on the side of lifeÂ" Â- President George Bush.
The problem is their actions do not agree with their rhetoric. Their hypocrisy knows no end. This was never about life. Life for people like Bush and Delay is just an issue you use to divide people and win elections. The saddest thing is this was never about Terri Schiavo either. The cause celebre in BushÂ's perfect world would not have been able to recover the damages she has used for medical treatment costs for fifteen years because of tort reform and would see her coverage for medications dissipate this year under the Medicaid cuts.
DonÂ't believe me that this was not about Terri? I will leave you with a quote from Tom Delay in speaking to the Family Research Council:
Â"One thing God has brought us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me, and against many others.Â"
Even in speaking about Terri Schiavo, this has always been about himself. This woman has been through hell for fifteen years and is now a political football, but somehow it is all about attacks on Tom Delay. Somehow, Delay views himself as the victim. Welcome to life in a representative hypocrisy.
Anthony Wade, a contributing writer to opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies and abuses of the government. He is a 37-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess.
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