In
near-record time, the Terri Schiavo case has morphed into a national cause
célèbre stoked by the almost unlimited self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the
Bush Administration.

The
family tragedy has been happily picked up by Tom Delay, who’s seeking to divert
attention from his growing scandal woes. Continuing the political
grandstanding, Bush rushed back to Washington to sign the Delay-inspired
“legislation” to “save Terri Schiavo” as a sop to the their Christian Right
political base. If the polls are any indication, this strategy may backfire.

Bush
signed the constitutionally dubious bill to transfer legal responsibility for
this case to the Federal courts. Afterwards, the president indicated that, if
given the choice, “we should always err on the side of life” when critical
issues are faced. Oh, if this were but true. Bush and his neocon and Christian
Right base have a long record of behaving just the opposite when the political
agenda had a different orientation. The examples abound:

•
When governor of Texas, Bush signed a law that gave hospitals the right to
discontinue treatment despite family input. Last week, a Texas hospital —
against the mother’s wishes — pulled the plug on a six-month-old infant who
was on life support. The mother had no health insurance and had been cut off
from prenatal care due to Medicaid cutbacks. Of course, there was no national
outcry over that situation.

•
Bush never issued a stay of execution for anyone on the Texas death row, and
Texas set a record for executions during his term of office as governor. In
Illinois, Republican Governor George Ryan suspended all executions when it was
determined that at least 15 percent of those on death row were innocent. Ryan
believed the judicial system in Illinois was not effective enough to maintain
the death penalty. Bush, on the other hand, thought the Texas system was
flawless. He admits he never spent more than half an hour on any death penalty
petition. This is “erring on the side of life”?

•
The National Academy of Sciences estimates that 18,000 people per year die in
the United States because they have no health insurance. If someone was trying
to “err on the side of life,” it must be assumed that they would care about
this situation. In Bush’s case, there is no such indication.

•
The same members of Congress who rushed to Washington to “save Terri” recently
put incredible pressure on states by voting to cut $15 billion from Medicaid
funding. Inevitably, many people will be put in serious and life-threatening
jeopardy.

•
Terri Schiavo was originally awarded $750,000 in a medical malpractice lawsuit
to cover her care. This award is now exhausted and her care is dependent on
Medicaid. The people in Congress now crying crocodile tears for the cameras are
the same ones who recently passed legislation limiting lawsuits of this kind to
$250,000.

•
The same people in Congress and President Bush were the ones to eagerly launch
a war in Iraq under the flimsiest of excuses. The grave threat to America has
turned out to be bogus. The cost of not “erring on the side of life”? Upwards
of 100,000 lives lost and counting.

•
Is it really “erring on the side of life” when the actual agenda is so
obviously political? And that agenda was captured so well in the surreptitious
recording of Tom Delay as he addressed the right-wing Family Research Council.
The “save Terri” case was a God-given opportunity, according to Delay in his
recorded remarks, to use against those who support the liberal agenda.

•
In August 2001, Bush was on his ninth week of vacation since coming into office
eight months earlier. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the “system was
blinking red” that something serious was up and that al Queda was preparing an
attack. Did Bush return to Washington to get on top of the situation because he
wanted to “err on the side of life”? Well, no. Such an effort was reserved for
the politically expedient “save Terri” project.

The word
“hypocrisy” is the only one that seems to fit the blatant inconsistency of the positions
taken by Bush and his supporters. But there are other words that also fit, the
most prominent among them is “expediency.” The neocons view themselves as being
principled and driven by a consistent philosophy. But this is not the reality.
They support states’ rights, except when it works against them politically.
Then they override states’ rights, with the Terri Schiavo legislation being the
latest example. But it’s not the only example. Remember Bush vs. Gore in 2000?

When
Delay, Bush, et al, started this sad train of events, they were convinced that
it would give them a big boost. If they “saved” Terri Schiavo by forcing the
feeding tube back in, they win. If her feeding tube is not restored because the
legal maneuver fails and she dies, they still win for making the effort. And
they would be heroes to the right-wing base while making a martyr of poor
Terri. Maybe, at long last, the neocon overreach may have hit its limits. As of
this writing, the public does not seem to be buying the act.

A
rush to prepare living wills is now underway, as people see this tragic story
unfold. This could be the only positive to emerge from the unfortunate
situation. But how many of those people would wish to be kept alive at all
costs for 15 years? Almost none of them. So why’s the country being dragged
through this tragedy?

This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2005.