Shopping for the Right Schiavo Decision

As predicted, when yesterday's federal judge refused to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reattached, the parents flew into Federal Appeals court. And forgive me if I doubt there was any coincidence that the judge picked yesterday was a Clinton appointee there to look bad when he made the only legal decision possible (one reached in between 19 and 23 other court cases on this same matter): that there was no legal precedence to overturn the guardian's decision.

The Supremes have already refused to hear this case two or three times, saying the matter was for lower courts to decide and that the lower courts had followed the law. But I have no doubt the Schindlers will go there again and that Congress and Bush will somehow require them to act (and the "right" way, too, damn 'em).

Although it was a very dramatic lie, DeLay and Frist and Bush&Co kept saying that the parents of Terri Schiavo and Terri herself deserved their day in court. They pretended like the Schindlers have not already had endless days in court.

But exactly how many times and how many courts do the Schindlers get? They've litigated for eight years; they have never been upheld in a single decision (and in several of the courts, the judges were conservatives, religious, and believed in Bush's so-called "culture of life").

Among legal experts, they say that all the court proceedings to date have issued rulings based on very sound legal judgment. The Washington Post has a story today stating that the experts do not see how any court can rule for the Schindlers based on law. And throughout all of this, even the sympathetic and conservative judges have been greeted by death threats and other nastiness simply for ruling against the Schindlers and the Rabid Wrongies.

So what's the next step? Will DeLay and Bush create a special judge just for this case? Will they push through broad new law just to allow them to protect Terri's non-life so they can eliminate abortion? I think it's fairly clear that these people don't know when to stop.