Hmmm
When Terry Schiavio had her tube pulled the executive and legislative branches of our government swung into action. Precedants were researched. Special laws wwere speedily written. Bush even came home from his ranch, to sign some legislation and to smile for the cameras. Tom Delay and all the fine, pious House Republicans made fine and pious statments on TV about how horrible it was for us to be letting a good Christian woman starve to death. Constitutional nicities like the separartion of powers and federalism were forgotten. In fact my good friend, Toby Katz, put it best when she said "While Terri Schiavo is dying, G-d is in Heaven, judging."
But last week when 35,000 people were starving in the Convention Center and the SuperDome everything moved nice and slowly. Bush couldn't be bothered to budge, not until Friday when the media shamed him into taking a look from his low-flying airplane. The lips of appologists drip with words like Posse Commitatus and suddenly everyone's an expert of the limits of Federal power. Cross Currents, notably, had nothing to say. And the fine, pious House Republicans are nowhere to be seen.
35,000 people lay starving, with many tens of thousands more on the verge of death for want of food, water, insulin, oxygen, IV fluids, and medication, but among the faithful defending the precious honor of Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff were greater worries.
Culture of life, my ass.
[Apologies to all and any who might have been offended by my strong language]