My letter to little Joey Scarbourough re: Schiavo

[ourbluenation]

This is in response to his blog here...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6330851/

He says, among other things..."But in the end, Americans shocked by this macabre chapter in American politics will see the Democrats as the party on the side of death and see George Bush as the defender of defenseless."


Joe, Joe, Joe...

You fail to understand what most dems do - there is no other choice (and if you look at the polls, most Americans understand this as well).

If nothing else we are a nation of laws and the courts have ruled that Mrs. Schiavo would not have wanted to live this way. We may all wish the laws were different but all the wishes in the world does not make them different right now. That's the difference between most of us and the right wing extremists (Bush included) - we recognize the reality of the situation. Doesn't make us the party of death - it makes us the party of reality. If she had written her wishes down on a piece of paper we would not even be having this discussion...absent that piece of paper we have no choice but to turn to the courts - or what? Send in federal marshalls and defy the courts? I don't think so.

Most democrats like myself are not death promoters, we are promoters of civil rights. Absent that piece of paper, her living will, the courts have ruled that it would be against her rights to FORCE her to live this way. To force her to remain on life support via a feeding tube is to force her to live in a way the courts have ruled she didn't want to live...AND, congress and the President tried to extend her misery against her court sanctioned wishes. It's shameful.

Why should the dems, or any other political party, promote any other view when down here in reality, there was no other alternative than to turn to the court system of the United States of America to resolve this issue - from the local state court all the way to the highest court in the land.

Joe, unlike you, I think most people walk away from this with the view that it's a personal family tradegy...and, not that democrats are the party on the side of death and George Bush as the defender of defenseless, but that George Bush and many other republicans USED this case as a disgusting political opportunity. May God have mercy on them.

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