Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

Mr. Web writes:

You guys aren't going to comment about Terri Schiavo? Are you embarrassed by the GOP machine this week?

Frankly, Kid Various is on Terry Schiavo overload.

If Woody had gone straight to the lawyer and (signed a living will) this would never have happened.

Kid Various has. And just for future reference if you ever find him in a PVS like Schiavo - the Kid fully authorizes you, the reader, to kill him.

That said, the Kid finds it interesting that the left seeks to paint this as another example of the Republican Agenda^TM. And he will defend using the time honored strategy of pointing out that the other guys are just as bad.

Are we mistaken, or did this piece of sh*t bill pass the House with an overwhelming majority?

And did it not pass unanimously in the Senate? When, in fact, one lone Democrat could have held it up indefinitely? Where was the Democrats' vaunted filibuster then?

The fact is, this is not about Republicans or Democrats, it's about politicians. As Mr. Scriblerus ably pointed out:

Kid Various: Didn't this bill pass with an overwhelming majority in the house and unanimously in the Senate? It did. Strangely though I think Congress misread the public perception. Luckily we dodged the bullet because the Dems went along with us
Mr. Scriblerus: I agree, but the issue will fade for the majority of voters after she dies, the minority on the other hand...
Kid Various: Yeah, that's a good point. But the key question is why did the Dems go along?
Mr. Scriblerus: Why not?
Kid Various: Are they that afraid of being "anti-life"?
Mr. Scriblerus: It's not like pro-choice right to die folks won't vote for them and they're still reeling from 2004 elections, so it's a freebie politically.
Kid Various: You see THAT's where I disagree...you don't think they could lose suburban pro-choicers from this?
Mr. Scriblerus: Where they gonna go?
Kid Various: True dat, BUT, it's not going to make the ardent pro-lifers hate them LESS.
Mr. Scriblerus: Take Congressman Chris Smith, for example he's already anti-choice, the Dems are trying to win back the Reagan Democrats, the Catholic seniors citizens who are New Deal Democrats, but go to mass. I'm sure the Schiavo issue is huge in Bayonne, Kearny, South River
etc., but political trouble in Short Hills and Alpine.

Scrib is right in one regard, the people who are going to care about this whole rigamarole a year from now are the intense right-to-lifers. And that's the constituency the Dems are desperately trying to chip away at by supporting bills like this. And it's probably a smart move. They need the votes of traditional Democrats who espouse traditional morality. Which is why Hillary Clinton is moving to the right on the abortion debate.

Luckily, the Founders were wise enough to know that all demagoguery runs in the veins of all who aspire to political office, which is why they had the foresight to include an apolitical judiciary that regulates a lot of these interactions. And in this regard, the system works. Nothing has changed. Terri Schiavo is going to die. So, for the Democrats no harm, no foul.

And what the hell? It gives the Kid a chuckle to see leftists arguing against giving government the ability to meddle in the life of the individual. It plays against type.