Extraordinary Measures

[Lightning Rod]

Compassionate Conservatism?

Extraordinary Measures
for releases 03-22-05
Washington D.C.

I don't want to think about this subject, it's too painful. You probably don't want to think about it either. I'm talking about the Terri Shaivo case. You know the case where the entire might of the federal government is being invested in meddling in the business of one family.

There is no doubt that this subject is heartbreaking. Nobody likes to consider slow vegetative death. Terri Shaivo doesn't know what is going on and is beyond caring about it. Surely she doesn't know that she is being used as a political pawn. She could have saved herself a great deal of tedium if she had signed a living will, but what 29 year old wants to think about the possibility of having a debilitating heart attack that will leave her in a coma?

A living will stipulates that, in the case of accident or catastrophic illness, the signatory will not be kept alive by 'extraordinary measures.' This is a legalistic way to say, "Let's don't prolong the agony." It is a document to announce, "Spare me the pain, and yourself the expense, of keeping me alive if I am a vegetable and hooked up to devices to keep my carcass animated while the legal details are worked out and my property is divvied up."

Unfortunately Terri Shaivo didn't draft such a document in writing, but her husband, Michael, maintains that she imparted her wishes to him in this respect. She didn't, he tells us, want to be kept alive by 'extraordinary means.' Six Florida State Courts have upheld his right, as her legal guardian, to honor Terri's wishes and let her die.

Michael Schiavo correctly described this week's Congressional action as a mockery. He said, “These people in Congress are walking all over my personal and private life. I'm telling you, the United States citizens, you better start speaking up, because these people are going to trample into your personal, private affairs."

At this point it gets down to who wants to water the plant. If Terri Shaivo's parents want to care for and maintain their daughter until she is as old as King Tut, I say good on them. The gentlemanly thing to do to end this affair gracefully would be for Michael Shiavo to relinquish his rights of guardianship and get a divorce and allow Terri's parents to water the plant. But we're not concerned with a graceful resolution here. This is politics. If there is anything that can top drugs and baseball players as dramatic content for the Congressional Reality Show, it's a highly sensationalized matter of life and death where good Republicans can rush to the rescue of an innocent woman condemned to slow starvation, and show the heathen agnostic Democrats to be the anti-religious and anti-life heretics that they are.

Too bad Terri didn't have a living will. She would have been spared these gruesome details. Talk about 'extraordinary measures.' The Congress of the United States was called back from Easter recess just to draft a law to benefit a special interest group consisting of exactly One person. But I suppose it is not unusual for our legislature to make laws favoring One industry or One company. Why not One person? The President Himself hopped on Air Force One and returned from Crawford to Washington to sign the bill. This was to prove that he was indeed a compassionate conservative and that he was a part of 'the culture of life' (which is a newspeak phrase that is code for "I'm anti-abortion.")

Not often am I ashamed to be a Texan. But when I watch Tom DeLay and George Bush, both my fellow Texans, adopt the phony and sanctimonious posture that they have in the Shaivo case, I have to hang my head. This is the most transparent example of political opportunism that The Poet's Eye has ever seen. The maneuver is exemplary of the type of slimy tactics that Delay and Bushco habitually employ.

If Delay will use a phony children's fund to solicit and hide illegal contributions from his corporate buddies, why should he hesitate to make a political straw-woman of Terri Shaivo? This is worse sanctimony than Jimmy Swaggart preaching the word of god on national TV while he's shtupping whores in motels out on Route 16.

The Poet's Eye can't see well enough to determine if keeping Terri Shaivo alive is an act of compassion or an act of cruelty. Who knows if a persistent vegetative state is closer to heaven or hell? But it is very clear that to take the trials and pain of this woman and her family and turn them into a political circus, has nothing to do with compassion, it's the cheapest brand of slime-ball whoredom that I can imagine, but we have come to expect that from DeLay and Bushco.

If George W. Bush will make the grand gesture of flying back to Washington like the Lone Ranger to sign a bill that is designed to keep one woman alive who is in a persistent vegetative state, if he is really part of 'the culture of life,' why wouldn't he raise a pen as the Governor of Texas to save these people?


Executions in the State of Texas while George Bush was governor:

1995

Karl Hammond
Vernon Satterwhite
Carl Johnson Jr.
Harold Joe Lane
Bernard Amos
Hai Hai Vuong
Esequel Banda
James Briddle

1996

Leo Jenkins
Kenneth Granviel
Joe Gonzales

1997

Richard Brimage Jr.
John Barefield
David Lee Herman
David Spence
Billy Woods
Kenneth Gentry
Benjamin Boyle
Ernest Orville Baldree
Terry Washington
Anthony Ray Westley
Clifton Belyeu
Richard Drinkard
Clarence Lackey
Bruce Callins
Larry Wayne White
Robert Madden
Patrick Roberts
Kenneth Harris
Davis Losada
Dorsie Johnson
Earl Behringer
David Stoker
Eddie James Johnson
Irineo Montoya
Robert West Jr.
James Carl Lee Davis
Jessel Turner
Benjamin Stone
John Cockrum
Dwight Adanandus
Ricky Lee Green
Kenneth Ransom
Aua Lauti
Aaron Lee Fuller
Michael Sharp
Charlie Lee Livingston
Michael Lockhart

1998

Karla Faye Tucker
Steven Renfro
Jerry Lee Hogue
Joseph Cannon
Lesley Gosch
Frank McFarland
Robert A. Carter
Pedro Cruz Muniz
Clifford Boggs
Johnny Pyles
Leopoldo Narvaiz
Genaro Ruiz Camacho
Delbert Teague
David Castillo
Javier Cruz
Jonathan Nobles
Kenneth McDuff
Daniel Lee Corwin
Jeff Emery
James Meanes

1999

John Glenn Moody
Troy Farris
Martin Vega
Jorge Cordova
Danny Lee Barber
Andrew Cantu
Norman Green
Charles Rector
Robert Excell White
Aaron C. Foust
Jose De La Cruz
Clydell Coleman
William Little
Joseph Stanley Faulder
Charles Daniel Tuttle
Tyrone Fuller
Ricky Blackmon
Charles Anthony Boyd
kenneth Dunn
James Earhart
Joe Trevino
Raymond James Jones
Willis Barnes
William Price Davis
Richard Wayne Smith
Alvin Wayne Crane
Jerry McFadden
Domingo Cantu
Desmond Jennings
John Michael Lamb
Jose Gutierrez
David Long
James Beathard
Robert Atworth
Sammie Felder Jr.

2000
Earl Heiselbetz, Jr.
Spencer Goodman
David Hicks
Larry Robison
Billy Hughes, Jr.
Glen McGinnis
James Moreland
Cornelius Goss
Betty Lou Beets
Odell Barnes Jr.
Ponchai Wilkerson
Timothy Gribble
Tommy Ray Jackson
William Kitchens
Michael McBride
James Richardson
Richard Foster
James Clayton
Robert Carter
Thomas Mason
John Burks
Paul Nuncio
Gary Graham
Jessy San Miguel
Orien Joiner
Juan Soria
Brian Roberson
Oliver Cruz
John Satterwhite
Richard Jones
David Gibbs
Jeff Caldwell
Ricky McGinn
Jeffrey Dillingham
Miguel Flores
Stacey Lawton
Garry Miller
Daniel Hittle
Claude Jones

[Dave The Dov]

Compassionate conservative or incompetent conservative that to me is how it should really be looked at. The goverment needs to stay out of Schiavo case altogether. All of a sudden the funnymentals come out of the woodwork and with what ever political pressure try and get it their way. I hope they up end going down in flames once they realize that staying out of it would have been the best way in the first place. I wonder even if there was a living will would it have been honored at all????
_________________
Airgun Designs

[CDTexan]

It infuriates me to see "news stories" that include photos of Terry from ten years ago - certainly no feeding tube visible. Perfect haircuts and perfect teeth in her expressionless face attract a sympathy we might not extend to a soul trapped in a terminally boring shell. Claims that her husband is interested in cash intended for Terry's healthcare are ludicrous - after 15 years of doctors and lawyers, a million dollar settlement is way past gone. Even if she is capable of responding to stimulus, and even if she feels sorry for her parents, I suspect she hates them for holding her hostage.

[Lightning Rod]

welcome to Studio Eight, CDTexan

thanks for your comments.

'ludicrous' is the perfect word to apply to this whole situation.

[Lightning Rod]

dave--

make your living will now

don't let the funnymentals run your life (or death)

[bohonato]

I'd rather be dead than live fifteen years as a vegetable.

I would rather see my daughter die than have her live fifteen years as a vegetable.


Nicely written, as always.

[mtmynd]

Another good one, ElRod. you hit the proverbial nail on the head by saying, "The gentlemanly thing to do to end this affair gracefully would be for Michael Shiavo to relinquish his rights of guardianship and get a divorce and allow Terri's parents to water the plant." I agree totally with that... and your list or the executed was a strong ending. A+ to ya', doood.

[sooZen]

Cec and Lrod...maybe the real 'gentlemanly' thing is what Michael is doing, trying to follow what he says were Terri's wishes.

One would hope this would never happen but if it did, to me, and I didn't have that all important living will, I would think that my spouse would have a better idea of my wishes than my parents (me, being an married adult). As much as my parents love me, I think my mate 'knows' me better than anyone. I surely hope that IF this did happen to me, that Cec wouldn't give up and let my parents "water the plant"!

BTW Lrod...I think what the congress phoo(ye)bahs and the Pres did was a rip to the Constitution. Funny how they use life and death and their 'reasonings' to render our rights...no, it's not funny, is it?

Peace,
SooZen

[stilltrucking]

If her husband did not have a girl friend and children by her, I would say yes SooZen. But he has moved on with his life, I think LR is right, let her parents have her. Her husband should change the benficiary on his wife's insurance policy if possible. I hate these hot breaking news stories. Michael Jackson trial was a bust for the news media. This corporate news merger with the military industrial complex is bad. Judih made a comment on the S stream about "they can't tame reality" but they can manage our perception of what is real. Yesterday's san antonio express news had a little blurb about Iraq on page 8. The front page had the important stuff. Terri Shaivo and Michael Jackson. The news used to be a public service, now it has to earn its keep, it has to be profitable.

[Lightning Rod]

I usually do not explain my assertions. I prefer to simply let the obvious sink in. The facts usually speak for themselves.

The Shaivo case is unusually charged with pathos and politics and religious zeal.

But in the voluminous internet postings which I have read about this subject, I see two separate issues. One is the moral issue of the right to die with dignity. Under this category we see all the blathering about whether Hubby is a bastard or the questions about what Terri Shaivo's real wishes were about existing as a vegetable for 15 years. This is all very tragic, and my heart goes out to all involved.

But there is a larger and more important issue here too. This is the one that I addressed in The Poet's Eye.

This issue is whether the government should be involved in this matter at all. The issue is: is it right or proper for a bunch of sleeze-ball politicians to use the misery of this family to make political hay.

When I wrote the column, I knew that there would be contention over the comparison of death row inmates to Terri Shaivo. Oh, yes, Lightning Rod, you are comparing murderers and rapists to an innocent vegetable.

Yes, I am comparing them, because they are all humans. They are all god's children, not matter what they have or haven't done.

If Bush and DeLay are so Christian and compassionate, why did they pass a law in Texas that says that a hospital has the right to pull the plug on someone in a terminal condition, even if the legal guardians object?

One of the foremost principles of Christianity is forgiveness. He forgave the whore at the fountain, and said Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, and he forgave the thief and the murderer to his left and his right when he was hanging on the cross. The Christian tenet is that it is god's place to exact judgment over life and death, not man's.

Bush and DeLay and their ilk like to drape themselves in the mantle of Christianity to pander to their well-meaning conservative base, but they are like the Pharisees praying in public. They are hypocrites.