Where's the Outrage? [Three Updates]
UPDATE #3: Think Progress (via Kos) catches White House press secretary McClellan saying the exact opposite of the truth in response to a question about Bush's signing of the Texas Futile Care Law. Of course, we expect that kind of thing from the people that brought us the Clean Air and Healthy Forests initiatives. Should the Schiavo story continue, we can look forward to Bush himself contradicting his former self and misrepresenting the truth about the 1999 law.

UPDATE #2: Liberal Common Sense (via Talkleft)has a profile outline of the federal judge hearing the Schiavo case.

UPDATE #1: Kevin Drum has the poll numbers (not that I will ever trust those again) to show that Americans by large margins are not buying either the content or the motivations of Republicans intervening in the Schiavo case; and the Carpetbagger (via Drum) points out how the religious right has succeeded where war, devastation and national security threats have all failed: in getting President Bush to cut short a vacation. At least we know where his priorities are.

While republicans yell and spin their heads over the Schiavo case, and run roughshod over the separation of powers in the process, it is worth remembering that loved ones and care providers make difficult decisions every day about maintaining futile care and living with dignity.

That dignity is not commensurate with a persistent vegetative state, and certainly not with political power-brokers inserting and removing a feeding tube on national television. That's why George Bush as Governor signed into law the Texas Futile Care law. And because of that law, 6-month old Sam Hudson was taken off a ventilator over the objections of his parents last week.

I don't hear Tom Delay screeching about that though.

The only possible difference is vegetative state vs. terminal condition. Why the Republican congress and the right-to-life folks (who were supporters of the Texas law) have decided that there is a possibility Terry Schiavo will return and regain consciousness and health, despite all medical promise to the contrary, is beyond me. Parents and families grieve and even disagree through these horrible situations every day. There's no reason to drag this one through the press, and change federal law to try and "win." If states and state courts can't decide the definitions at the heart of these struggles, what can they do?

Delay is a world-class prick.