Death and politics

Since the congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo life support case has been all that the television talking heads wanted to discuss this weekend, I thought I'd weigh in with my take on it. Then I found that Steven Taylor at PoliBlog has already addressed the legality and morality of the matter with more eloquence than I could have mustered. I highly recommend his post.

All that I would add to Taylor's post is how truly disgusted I am that both parties are tossing around the Schiavo situation like a political football. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday that "if the House Republicans refuse to pass our bipartisan bill, they bear responsibility for the consequences." Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who would like you to forget all about his little ethics brouhahas and the criminal indictments of his associates, decided to question the manhood of Schiavo's husband on Friday. But an anonymous Republican won the crassness battle this week with a memo that called the Schiavo situation "a great political issue" for the GOP.

Disgusting as the memo may be, at least its motives were clear. That's more than I can say for the grandstanders on Capitol Hill.