Dowd with the Smackdown

You may not believe this, but I don't know Maureen Dowd. I mean I know she's a popular columnist with the NYT and that she gets on a lot of people's nerves, but I couldn't tell you anything about her views or disposition. I just know that today, she's right.

The more dogma-driven activists, self-perpetuating pols and ratings-crazed broadcast media prattle about "faith," the less we honor the credo that a person's relationship with God should remain a private matter.

As the Bush White House desperately maneuvers in Iraq to prevent the new government from being run according to the dictates of religious fundamentalists, it desperately maneuvers here to pander to religious fundamentalists who want to dictate how the government should be run.

I think I'll use this argument to throw some parting shots at the Schindlers, even though I might not know what I'm talking about. That's one of the fascinating things about these 'emotional' stories, the news media wants to be shy with the facts.

For example, I have come to learn that there have been 26 court cases associated with this woman, 11 of them appeals. How is it that the Schindlers can afford this? Are they rich or not? Nobody says. I think they are rich and think they can buy as much legal muscle as America can offer their dear little rich, brain damaged daughter.

A great deal has been made about the fact that Mrs. Schiavo is not on life-support per se. She can breathe on her own, but needs to be fed and hydrated. And yet she has been in a hospital for 15 years. Why isn't she at the Schindler's home if she's not that sick? And exactly what kind of people can afford a fifteen year hospital stay? Out here in California we are closing hospitals, there's not enough to go around. We have a nursing shortage of 17,000! And this little rich girl gets a bed for 15 years?

Clearly I don't care, because I've already made up my mind, and I'm so full of disgust for the situation that I am not kind. But this situation is just like the situation of the NY firefighters who got involved in the matter of the statue. Some things just shouldn't rise above a certain level of symbolism and myth making. I never wanted to get involved in this controversy and said so when the story first broke in October 2003. Alas, but here we all are.

At least Dowd has brought the ball back up into the right playing field. Yes, I admit it. I have sunk to the depths of Schiavo depravity, scuttling around in the scuttlebutt like a lowly cuttlefish with my venomous ink. Now I'm disgusted with myself. Argh!

I'm not so certain as Dowd that it is axiomatic that Republicans are led around by the nose by moral posturing, but it's true that they're in a rut of success. One hopes that this tack backfires nicely but I see that the spin is already out of control onto the vector of Federalism. At least Christopher Shays has his head on straight.