delayed reaction

Many people were outraged by the way the Republican party attempted to gain a political bonus by taking advantage in the Terri Schiavo case. Terri Schiavo was not able to reverify her opposition to be maintained alive by artificial means that had been established by the courts and reviewed ad nauseum for over five years.

The outrageous behavior included an attempt by Florida governor Jeb Bush to marshall a groups of armed agents to literally kidnap Schiavo from the hospice were she was staying. That attempt was apparently only thwarted when the governor's men realized they were likely to be outnumbered by local authorities who had been prewarned and were ready to enforce the rule of law.

For their part, congressional Repulbicans rushed through a private bill in an attempt to stop Terri Schiavo's wishes but the federal courts stood up and found no basis for additional delays.

Where were the democrats when all this was going on? Well, there was principled opposition by some democratic house members but not one democratic senator attempted to stop this outageous Federal intrusion into a purely private dispute.

Now comes Howard Dean who, apparently after reading the polls, has decided this should be an issue for his party:

"Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday that his party would wield the Terri Schiavo case against Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but for now needed to stay focused battling President Bush on Social Security."

Well Dr. Dean, where was Hillary Clinton and John Kerry when the Senate was passing through the inappropriate private bill? We are told that a single senator can delay a pice of legislation but the senate version of the odious Schindler private bill (named for Terri's parents who ironically led the fight to deny their daughter her rights) was passed in the middle of the night with not even a roll call. Maybe the democrats should develop the principles before the fact rather than after everything is done and the polls are out.