Point/CounterpointDebate newsworthy and other 'hot-button' topics here. If it can be debated, this is the forum for it. Can't be thin skinned - people will disagree with you. No flaming or personal attacks.
Tina Brown, who knows something about high and low culture -- having gone from a magazine called Tatler to Vanity Fair to the New Yorker -- hit it on the head yesterday.
"Mainstream media types spend a lot of time complaining to each other that you can't get real news anywhere anymore," she wrote . "Then we go to work and spend all day pounding to death the same story as everyone else."
The cable-driven news culture has long careened from one obsession to the next, but never with such breakneck speed. I feel like I've been bounced around like a pinball in a machine. The Martha-out-of-jail fixation, the Jacko/young boys/porn trial, the Robert Blake how'd-he-get-off verdict, the Ashley Smith angel-redeems-murder-suspect saga, the Jessica Lunsford suspect arrested. And then in just the last day, Terri Schiavo dies, the pope falls gravely ill and, in my little world, Ted Koppel quits.
So loud was the beating of the cable drums that the release of a commission report on the Bush administration's "dead wrong" intelligence in Iraq was reduced to a mere blip against the sad but inevitable death of Schiavo, which continued with emotional intensity -- especially in front of the cameras -- even after the passing of the woman that this was supposedly all about. "Rest in peace" was not in the media's lexicon, not with the politicians still fighting and the relatives still feuding and too many still trying to milk partisan or ideological advantage from the tragedy.
Will we look back on this as March Madness? Have you ever seen the country go so crazy over the case of a single obscure person -- when the same thing has happened to so many other brain-damaged or critically ill patients over the years? Or is this just another passing spring storm, to be replaced by the next national angst attack?
I didn't go to law school, but haven't Republicans generally favored judges who strictly interpret the law, and state courts over federal control? All right, so Congress got caught up in the emotion of the moment and passed a bill forcing the Schiavo case into federal court, where the result was the same as it had been in state court rulings over 15 years. So why is Tom DeLay raising the possibility of impeaching some of the federal judges in the case? ("The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.") Is that now an appropriate remedy for judicial rulings we don't like?
The Schiavo case raised some important issues, but these have been almost totally overshadowed by the histrionics that the media were all too happy to carry around the clock.
"The life and death of Terri Schiavo -- intensely public, highly polarizing and played out around the clock on the Internet and television -- has become a touchstone in American culture," says the New York Times . "Rarely have the forces of politics, religion and medicine collided so spectacularly, and with such potential for lasting effect.
"Ms. Schiavo, the profoundly incapacitated woman whose family split over whether she would have preferred to live or die, forced Americans into a national conversation about the end of life. . . .
"Nearly 30 years after the parents of another brain-damaged woman, Karen Ann Quinlan, injected the phrase 'right to die' into the lexicon as they fought to unplug her respirator, Ms. Schiavo's case swung the pendulum in the other direction, pushing the debate toward what Wesley J. Smith, an author of books on bioethics, calls 'the right to live.' "
Salon's Eric Boehlert nails the press:
"It was fitting that reporters were in danger of outnumbering pro-life supporters outside Terri Schiavo's hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., on Thursday morning. When one man began to play the trumpet moments after Schiavo's death was announced at 9:50 a.m., a gaggle of cameramen quickly surrounded him, two or three deep.
"Has there ever been a set of protesters so small, so out of proportion, so outnumbered by the press, for a story that had supposedly set off a 'furious debate' nationwide? That's how Newsweek.com described the Schiavo story this week. Although it's not clear how a country can have a 'furious debate' when two-thirds of its citizens agree on the issue. . . . But the 'furious debate' angle has been a crucial selling point in the Schiavo story in part because editors and producers could never justify the extraordinary amount of time and resources they set aside for the story if reporters made plain in covering it every day that the issue was being driven by a very small minority who were out of step with the mainstream. . . .
"What is telling about the excessive coverage is how right-wing activists, with heavy-hitter help from Washington, were able to lead the press around, as if on a leash, for nearly two weeks as they pumped up what had been a long-simmering (seven years) family legal dispute and turned it into the most-covered story since a tsunami in Asia three months ago left approximately 300,000 people dead or missing."
With the pope himself on a feeding tube, Andrew Sullivan grapples with church policy:
"If the rule is that all persistently vegetative patients must be attached to feeding tubes indefinitely, then the costs to society would be stratospheric. At some point we could have as many not-dead-yet human beings suspended unconsciously in semi-life as we have in embryo factories at the other end of the human spectrum. My point is not that this case has been easy in Catholic moral terms. My point is precisely that it is not easy. Fifteen years with no brain waves at all? Keeping her in that state would have been just ordinary care And at what point do we 'accept the human condition' in the Church's words? That's the question.
"We can say, however, that Michael Schiavo's record is certainly within the scope of the Church's historical understanding of what the moral obligations toward his wife are. What we are seeing is how far this Pope has shifted the debate toward an absolutist position on life and death. He is the innovator. But he does not have a monopoly on what the Church as a whole believes. It's a church; not a personal cult. Not yet, anyway."
Michael Schiavo has gotten his share of abuse, and now blogger Steve Gilliard lets the parents have it:
"One of the wacko priest supporting the Schindlers, said the brother and sister were asked to leave so Michael Schaivo could spend the last minutes alone with his dying wife. He said 'his heartless cruelty continued.'
"What? Heartless what? The Schindlers slandered this man, allowed protesters to haunt his small children, tormented him for eight years and they want to talk about heartless cruelty? They tore into him for years, slandered him and placed his life in danger. There's been plenty of heartless cruelty and it lays at the feet of the Schindler's."
In American Prospect, Terence Samuel writing before Schiavo's death, passes out plenty of blame:
"Despite the wall-to-wall cable coverage, the blogging, the gazillion of words dedicated to the subject by journalists, pundits, and polemicists, people seem to know we have ventured inside one family's private torment and that we have no business being there.
"As this case heads toward its sad and sure ending, the more dismayed I am by those whom I had also regarded as victims in the case: the warring family factions -- the Schiavos, the Schindlers, and their various surrogates who have force-fed us their tragedy in snippets and sound bites. There the Congress and the White House may indeed have been meddling when they marshaled the national legislature to move this case to federal court, but we have to ask: What kind of family would allow this to get into the courts in the first place -- and then allow it to drag on?
"Capitulation by one side or the other would seem heroic at this point, because whatever else we don't know, we can be sure that Terri Schiavo would not have wanted to be the center of this freak show."
<snip>
(What are the odds, meanwhile, that the Pope would be put on a feeding tube while all this is going on?)
"A federal appeals court in Atlanta refused Wednesday to reconsider the case of Terri Schiavo," reports the New York Times , "with one of the judges rebuking President Bush and Congress for acting 'in a manner demonstrably at odds with our founding fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people.'"
In judicial language, that's a smackdown.
"An emergency appeal the Schindlers filed with the Supreme Court Wednesday night, asking that Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube be reinserted while they made further appeals, was rejected. It was the sixth time the court declined to intervene."
Also, "the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who met with her parents for the second day in a row, later said he was urging them to accept her probably imminent death."
This post caught my eye because it's from Neal Boortz a staunchly conservative radio talk show host in Atlanta:
"May I suggest that the principal reason for the precipitous drop in Bush's popularity ratings might be due to the fact that Americans . . . not all, but many . . . are just a little bit upset that Bush so eagerly injected the federal government into what should be a private family matter? Right now we have the staffs of two United States Senators, Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, and Martinez, a Republican from Florida, working to put together a law that would require federal court review of any family dispute about a patient without a living will. Why a federal court review? Why can't this be handled in the state courts? Why do we have to expand the scope and power of the Imperial Federal Government to the point that the tentacles of government reach into the very heart of intra-family relations?. . . .
"We all know the answer here, don't we . . . and the answer points us to one of the principal reasons for the decline in Bush's approval ratings. There is one reason that the Congress got involved in this unpleasantness in Florida. One reason that Bush rushed back to Washington to sign legislation injecting the federal government into that situation, and one reason Harkin and Martinez are working on their legislation to expand the powers of the federal government. That reason is pressure from anti-abortion advocates and religious extremists. . . .
"Someone who openly calls for a theocracy in America, as Randall Terry has done, is an extremist. Randall Terry is at the center of the Florida controversy. Bush's actions were seen by some as pandering to Randall Terry. These Florida hospice protestors who wandered down the street about 10 days ago to harass an auto shop owner for daring to work on a Sunday would be examples of religious extremists. Bush's actions were seen as pandering to these zealots. This frightens people."
In Reason, Cathy Young sounds a bit disgusted:
"I wish I could see something good or noble in the political and media circus over the sad fate of Terri Schiavo -- such as a nation's willingness to focus its attention on one person's life or death. No doubt, some people trying to keep Schiavo, or her body, alive are driven by sincere humanitarian passion. But, mostly, this spectacle has been a sickening display of cynicism and fanaticism.
"According to every credible source, there's no such person as Terri Schiavo anymore. Her cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that governs consciousness, was destroyed 15 years ago by oxygen deprivation during a cardiac arrest. What remains is a body in a vegetative state, capable of physical reflexes including random eye movements, meaningless sounds, and facial contortions that may look like smiles or frowns.
"Loved ones often wishfully mistake these reflexes for signs of awareness; no one blames Schiavo's parents for clinging to such hopes. Far more blameworthy are the know-nothing activists, politicians, and pundits who tout video clips of Schiavo as proof she is fully conscious. These clips of Schiavo exposed in her pathetic state strike me as a far worse indecency on television than Janet Jackson's exposed breast."
Robert Kuttner in his Boston Globe column, sees a silver lining:
"Some good may yet come of Terri Schiavo's sad story. More of us will think hard about how we'd want to be treated if terminally incapacitated. More of us will write living wills, making clear who is in charge. And more people will gain a truer understanding of the religious right.
"The Republican Party may also hesitate, out of its own life-support instincts, before rushing so recklessly to embrace extreme zealotry.
"And the Democrats, often cowed by America's latest apparent romance with fundamentalism, may wake from their own persistent vegetative state. Much to the shock of Republican operatives and opportunists, polls show that most Americans deeply resent the plain meddling reflected in the right-wing dash back to Washington to write a one-woman law to keep Terri Schiavo on a feeding tube. Bill Frist, the doctor-senator, looked like a perfect idiot when he purported to diagnose her condition via videotape. Even Jeb Bush is backing off."
Not so fast, says National Review's Jonah Goldberg to those who foresee a conservative crackup:
"First, keep in mind that what has prompted the most recent bout of panic is the passionate -- and legitimate -- differences over the Terri Schiavo case. Just as hard cases make bad law, they also tend to make for bad analysis. Lots of people are pointing to the fact that the polls do not support Congress's decision to intervene on Schiavo's behalf (even as the nature of that involvement has been often wildly exaggerated). The Republican party has exposed itself, if these pessimists are to be believed, with a dangerous overreach that will haunt it for years.
"Uh, not likely. Whatever you think of the legislative branch's involvement, it's doubtful the issue will be a political albatross for the GOP any more than, say, the Elian Gonzales scandal permanently tarnished the Democrats. Indeed, recall that the Clinton impeachment drive was far more deleterious for the GOP's standing in the polls over a far longer period of time, and if that effort did permanent damage to the Republican party, it's hard to find today. The federal government is run by Republicans for as far as the eye can see.
"True, the conservative coalition has its share of contradictions, but that's to be expected of any growing ideological movement or political party."
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds makes a rare (possibly unprecedented) appearance on liberal Salon to argue that "the entire notion of the 'rule of law' -- itself once a favored slogan of conservatives -- seems to have fallen into disrepute. Quite a few conservatives are unhappy about that state of affairs, and I wonder if it doesn't presage a realignment within the Republican Party, and the fracturing of some alliances on the right.
"Schiavo hysteria certainly has some Republicans in its grip. Bill Bennett wrote that state law doesn't deserve our respect if it conflicts with natural law. Bennett went on to urge Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to risk impeachment by violating the orders of the Florida Supreme Court. Fox News' John Gibson was less measured. 'Just to burnish my reputation as a bomb thrower,' he wrote last Friday on the Fox News Web site, 'I think Jeb Bush should give serious thought to storming the Bastille.' In other words, Bush should consider sending police in to remove Schiavo from the hospice and reattach her feeding tube."
Point/Counterpoint
04-01-2005, 16:03
News Vertigo & Terry Schiavo... 
