SHAMELESS GRANDSTANDING

Virtually every single day across this country decisions are made to discontinue extraordinary medical intervention and people are allowed to proceed with the process of dying.  In some cases feeding tubes are removed.  More often ventilators are turned off.  In one case a person starves to death, in another they are suffocated.  It happens every day ... but you don't hear politicians screaming about murder. And why?  Because those cases don't generate the media heat that this one has.

What makes the Terri Schiavo case different?  One thing .. the Schindlers, her parents.  I have every bit of sympathy in the world for Terri's parents, but they're living in a dream world.  There is nothing left of their daughter .. nothing but a wasted body that transported her on this earth during her life.  She is not there.  In spite of their hysterical claims, Terri doesn't know who they are when they walk into her room, and she has no emotional response whatsoever when they leave.  She is in a persistent vegetative state, not a coma.  She will not suddenly sit up one day and ask what's been going on.  Her body can sustain only the most basic functions.  It will react to pain, but she has no conscious awareness of the pain.  The body will react to other stimulus, such as loud noises or lights being turned on and off .. but, again, she has no conscious awareness of any kind as to what is happening around her.  Plants react to light.  You can hook up a household plant to a machine that can register changes in electrical charges within the plant and determine that the plant has reactions to changes in light and, in some cases, to people coming in and out of the room.  Notice that we're describing a plant here .. a plant that has basically the same reactions to stimulus that Terri Schiavo has.  The term "persistent vegetative state" wasn't just created out of thin air.  Face it.  Terri Schiavo has just about the same awareness of the world around her as a philodendron. 

We've all read stories about near death experiences.  Many times these stories deal with someone who "dies" during surgery.  The descriptions seem to always be somewhat the same.  The patient suddenly feels themselves leaving their body.  They're floating somewhere in the room looking down on the doctors trying to revive them.  When the resuscitation works they describe the feeling of falling back into their bodies.   The resuscitation of Terri Schiavo didn't work.  She didn't die .. neither did she come back to life.  Based on the stories we've heard from others, is it possible that the spirit ... the soul of Terri Schiavo is floating around that hospice room, trapped, somehow, between life and death?  Could the soul of Terri Schiavo be pleading with her parents to just step back and let her go?  Death is really the only certainty of life.  It is the one destination we all share.  I don't know about you, but I believe that there's something waiting after this life.  I look at death as a transition, not an end.  When God is through with me on this earth I don't want a bunch of well-meaning people trying to hold me back.  If my body and my mind can be saved, fine.  But I don't want to be caught in some type of medically induced nowhere waiting for my body to follow me through that transition.

The matter of Terri Schiavo has already been decided in the courts of the State of Florida. Due process has run its course.  But along come the Republicans to once again expand the role of the federal government.  From this day on your right to die, your right to instruct your loved ones to not take extraordinary measures to keep you alive if disaster strikes, is a federal matter, not a state one.

There's something rather curious happening in the media.  For years .. for over 15 years ... she has been known as Terri Schiavo.  Check the legal proceedings:  Terri Schiavo.  In the Pinellas County (Florida) Circuit Court decision that started the latest round of controversy she is referred to as Theresa Marie Schiavo.  Now, however, you will see more and more newspapers and websites, especially those who are sympathetic with the anti-abortion movement, use the name Terri Schindler Schiavo.  She has never been known as Terri Schindler Schiavo .. never.  But now that's the name some news outlets are using.  Why?  To give added legitimacy to her parents in this controversy.

DEMOCRATS IN THE WILDERNESS

Chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean (that has such a nice ring to it, doesn't it?) was giving a speech to something called Democrats Abroad, a meeting of Democrats being held up in Toronto.  During that time, the governor had some interesting things to say. 

Dean said that one of the reasons John Kerry was beaten so decisively in November is because their overall message was too complicated.  He says they should keep it simple.  He also called Republicans "brain-dead."  Now stop and ask yourself....if the chairman of the GOP had called Democrats brain-dead, would it be ignored by the mainstream media like Dean's comments are?  Of course not.  But such is life when it comes to media bias.

Anyway, Dean goes on to say that the Democrats want to copy those same brain-dead Republicans, because he admires their ability to stay on message.  All of this completely misses the point, and underscores the Democratic denial across the country since they lost the election. 

They didn't lose because people didn't hear their message, they didn't lose because people didn't understand their positions.  They lost because people knew exactly where they stood, and they didn't like what the Democratic party had to offer.  The voting public believes that Democrats are soft on terrorism, in favor of higher taxes and more government control of our lives.

Until they realize how out of step they are with the public, Democrats will keep losing national elections.

EL PRESIDENTE GETS IT WRONG

Mexican President Vicente Fox is all upset.  He knows that the border between the United States and Mexico is very porous -- and that's just the way he wants it.  Thousands of illegal aliens (their correct name) pour over the border every day.  These illegal aliens clog our justice system and cost us a fortune in welfare benefits.  But most of them come here to work, and work they do.  And when those paychecks start coming in, much of the money goes right back to Mexico to take care of the families the illegals left behind.  How much money?  About $15 billion a year, that's how much, and that makes the illegal exportation of Mexican labor one of Mexico's largest industries. 

So, why is el Presidente so mad?  Since George Bush has demonstrated that he will do nothing about illegal immigration, some private citizens have decided to take up the cause.  In response to the problem, 950 people have joined the Minuteman Project, which is a group that plans to patrol the Arizona-Mexican border during April.  These folks will do what the federal government should be doing, which is to protect our borders.  The Minutemen will patrol the border on foot and in aircraft, and notify the border patrol if they see illegals coming across.

As you can imagine, Vicente Fox doesn't like this very much.  These people will be interfering with the exportation of illegal Mexican labor.  He calls this group "extremists."  He also says walls shouldn't be built along the border to keep illegal aliens out.  Fox has no interest at all in doing anything about the illegal immigration problem.  To him, the border should be wide open.  If that flow of money from exported Mexican labor ever stops then Fox will be faced with the problem of having to bring about an improved Mexican economy that can provide for its own citizens .. without sending them to the U.S. to work.

Wouldn't it be nice if Americans had enough of a work ethic that this all wouldn't be so necessary?

SCREWED BY TURKEY

Remember two years ago, at the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq when the United States had to rush at the last minute and change plans because the weak-kneed, weasly government of Turkey wouldn't let our troops stage there?  We were supposed to be able to invade Iraq from both directions....the north and the south....until Turkey cut us off. 

Well, we learned yesterday just how devastating this loss of a northern base was.  Speaking on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of Turkey's antics two years ago, and the high cost of their lack of cooperation.  He said that had we been able to get the 4th Infantry Division into Iraq from the north, more of Saddam's goons would have been captured or killed, and the insurgency would be far less than it was today.

One also wonders if our boys would have been able to stop the mass exodus into Syria of former regime officials, weaponry and (likely) stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.  It cannot be underestimated how much this lack of cooperation by Turkey cost American lives and made our job infinitely more difficult.

So the next time Turkey's boob gets caught in the wringer, we should take a pass.  What goes around comes around.