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- Delay Hypocrisy: The GOP Using The Schiavo Case
For Political Gain. Who Cries for Sun Hudson?
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- By Anthony Wade
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- March 19, 2005
www.OpEdNews.com
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- This is a story of two people who could not be more different,
while at the same time, be so alike. More importantly, it is a
story about a whore of a politician who genuinely does not care
about either, but shows it in completely different ways. This is a
story about hypocrisy and how Tom Delay and the Republican Party
embody that principle.
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- The first person in this sad story is named Terry Schiavo.
Most people have heard about Mrs. Schiavo because she has been in
the headlines on several occasions, for her current predicament.
Fifteen years ago, Mrs. Schiavo suffered a heart attack and fell
into a coma, at the shockingly young age of 26. Today, Mrs.
Schiavo is 41, still alive due to medical advances that sustain
her through machinery. On one side of this story about Mrs.
Schiavo is her husband and legal guardian, Michael. Michael
Schiavo insists that Terri would never want to live this way, kept
alive only by machinery. He has been fighting the legal battle to
have her feeding tube removed, which would ensure her passing
away. On the other side of this battle is the family of Terri
Schiavo, who do not wish to see their daughter/sister die, and in
fact view Michael as wishing to essentially “starve her to death.”
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- Recently, Michael Schiavo won a court battle that allowed the
removal of the feeding tube for his wife. Since the starvation
process would take some time, Terri’s family immediately went back
to try and fight the legality of this decision. What they got, was
support from an unexpected source. Tom Delay and the GOP have now
seized upon this story and are using it to further their own
agenda and to paint their opponents, the democrats, in an awkward
position. In a feeble attempt to stop the removal of the feeding
tube, Delay tried to subpoena Terri to appear and testify before
Congress. An obvious publicity stunt, since Terri Schiavo has not
spoken in 15 years, the attempt failed and the tube was removed.
Undeterred, Delay vowed to continue to fight this fight, declaring
the court’s decision a “moral and legal tragedy” and accusing the
judge of “trying to kill Terri for 4 1/2 years."
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- Delay of course has no idea what he is talking about since he
has only been involved in this case for a few weeks, when it
gained some political legs for him. There is a word for that where
I come from. It is called hypocrisy. To further this allegation,
ABC News
obtained a GOP talking points memo which explained to Senate
republicans why their involvement in the Schiavo case would be
important. The talking points stated that the Schiavo case was an
important moral issue and that the "pro-life base will be
excited," and that it is a "great political issue -- this is a
tough issue for Democrats."
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- Did you notice that there was nothing about Terri Schiavo in
their rationale for taking up this cause? Instead, the GOP has
outlined that they need to align themselves on the side of Terri
Schiavo because:
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- 1)
It will excite the pro-life base
- 2)
It is a great political issue
- 3)
It is a tough issue for democrats
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- Is anyone else disgusted? When asked about the talking points,
Delay denied they were GOP related and denounced them. Sure Tom,
we believe you. After all, you have never been involved in
anything unethical, right? Oh wait a minute, there were a couple
of problems weren’t there? Let’s take a quick look at the ethics
of Mr. Delay:
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- 1)
Delay’s Political Action Committee is under criminal
investigation for using corporate monies to finance political
campaigns.
- 2)
Delay tried to bribe another congressman to vote for the
Medicare Bill. He earned a public admonishment from the House
Ethics Committee for this.
- 3)
Delay used taxpayer monies to fuel a partisan hunt for
missing democrats in Texas. He was rebuked by the House Ethics
Panel for this.
- 4)
Delay set up a children’s charity as a front to collect
soft money from anonymous donors. Some of this money was then used
for “dinners, a golf tournament, and rock concerts.” This allowed
companies who wanted to win favor with Delay to do so without
revealing themselves as campaign donors.
- 5)
In another rebuke by the House Ethics Committee, we saw
executives at Westar Energy state that they believed their $56,500
contribution to the Delay PAC would get them a “seat at the table”
when key energy legislation was going to be drafted. Delay also
played in the Westar golf fundraiser, just as the 2002
House-Senate conference on major energy legislation was getting
underway,
- 6)
Delay took $100,000 from a Texas prison company as a bill
was pending that dealt with the privatization of Texas prisons.
- 7)
Delay received a “private rebuke” in 1999 for misusing his
power to payback a trade group that had named a democrat to head
their Washington operation. Delay had stopped two uncontroversial
trade bills which hurt the trade group in question and told them
that they would lose all GOP access unless they hired a republican
instead.
- 8)
Delay accepted donations to his own defense fund from two
individuals he then named to the very House Ethics Committee that
had already been so critical of him. Did you get that America? The
House Ethics Committee correctly rebuked Delay three separate
times. In response, Delay removed those that would dare be
critical of him, and replaced them with people who had already
donated money to his defense fund.
- 9)
Delay took an opulent vacation in 2000, paid for by an
Indian tribe and a gambling services company, both of which
opposed legislation which Delay then voted against, two months
later.
- 10)
Delay accepted a trip to South Korea, which was paid for by
a South Korean lobbying group, a violation of House rules. The
cost of this trip was in excess of $100,000.
- 11)
Delay proposed changes to the House Ethics Committee which
“would prevent the committee from launching any investigation
without the support of at least one republican – a restriction
designed to protect the majority leader.”
- 12)
Delay tried to convince House leaders to abandon an 11 year
old rule which required leaders to step aside temporarily if
indicted. Delay was facing possible indictment at the time. The
idea was dropped because it “sent the wrong message.” Do you
think?
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- Not content to mangle the ethics of the House of
Representatives, Mr. Delay has now decided to venture into the
realm of the ethics of social consciousness. The problem for him
is ethics are ethics and if you do not have any, it will become
apparent regardless of the forum. He expects us to believe that he
has taken up the Schiavo cause for a reason he does not
comprehend, ethics. The talking points reveal all we need to know,
this is not about Terry Schiavo for Tom Delay. It is another
opportunity to use someone for his own advantage. Michael Schiavo
referred to it as a mockery and he is correct. He stated this
week, “These people in Congress are walking all over my personal
and private life. I'm telling you, the United States citizens, you
better start speaking up, because these people are going to
trample into your personal, private affairs." On this point,
Michael Schiavo is right. He is right because Tom Delay could care
less about Terry Schiavo. She is only a political weapon for him
to wield. You can be sure of this because for every Terry Schiavo,
there is a Sun Hudson, who never gets the attention of the Tom
Delay’s of the world. Therein lies their hypocrisy.
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- Sun Hudson is the second person in our story. Sun was 17
pounds and six months old when the staff at Texas Children's
Hospital removed his breathing tube and allowed him to die this
week. Sun was born with a fatal form of dwarfism characterized by
short arms, short legs and lungs too small. This condition is
often found in utero, but Sun’s mother had no pre-natal care, so
the condition went undiagnosed. Placed on a ventilator, doctors
eventually recommended withdrawing treatment but Sun’s mother,
Wanda, refused. Unfortunately for Wanda Hudson, Tom Delay’s home
state of Texas has a law which allows hospitals to discontinue
life-sustaining care, even if a patient's family members disagree.
Where was the self-righteous Tom Delay in the case of Sun Hudson?
His silence is deafening in its hypocrisy.
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- I do not pretend to have the answers to what is moral or
correct in either of these situations. I just prefer to be
consistent. If you believe all life is life and must be protected
at all cost, then stand up for it at all times, not just when it
is politically beneficial. In the battle over Terri Schiavo both
sides claim things are not as the other side claims. Terri’s
family says she is responsive to stimuli. Michael, her husband
insists that his wife would not want to live like this and that
this is about mercy.
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- In the case of little Sun Hudson, the doctors paid to defend
the hospital’s decision to end his life said, “This isn't murder.
It's mercy, and it's appropriate to be merciful in that way. It's
not killing, it's stopping pointless treatment." It sounds like
Michael Schiavo and these doctors can agree about a lot. Wanda
Hudson had this to say after finally getting some media coverage,
“I wanted y'all to see my son for yourself. So you could see he
was actually moving around. He was conscious." It sounds like
Wanda Hudson and the family of Terri Schiavo could agree about a
lot as well.
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- That is the point isn’t it? There are two sides to these
heart-wrenching stories. Both sides have their valid points and
are deserving of their rights and privacy. Both sides are
legitimate in their defense of what they truly believe in. The
ethically bankrupt Tom Delay on the other hand, should be ashamed
to politicize the issue of life and death. He should be
embarrassed to drag his own hypocrisy into the arena of public
opinion, just to “excite the pro-life base” or to give the
democrats a “tough political issue to handle.”
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- Terri Schiavo is a real person and deserves better than to be
treated as a political football to further the cause of the GOP.
That is hypocrisy. This is the same hypocrisy that says that
George Bush believes in a “culture of life” while waging war to no
end. It is the same hypocrisy that sees so many people in the
right-to-life movement cross-enrolled in the National Rifle
Association supporting armor piercing bullets for “hunters”. It is
the same hypocrisy that sees a man such as Tom Delay, devoid of
ethics; decrying the ethical state of affairs in the Terri Schiavo
case at the very same instant they are removing the tube from Sun
Hudson, killing him.
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- Where is the outrage for Sun Hudson? Who cries for Sun Hudson?
Wasn’t the life of Sun Hudson as important as the life of Terri
Schiavo? The easy answer is yes. Unfortunately, the truthful
answer is the life of Sun Hudson was just not as politically
valuable. That should cause us all to at least pause for a moment
and realize that the value of life should never be measured
politically.
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Anthony Wade, a
contributing writer to
opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies
and abuses of the government. He is a 37-year-old independent writer
from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple
websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation
Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that
you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies
and excess.
Anthony Wade’s
Archive:
http://www.opednews.com/archiveswadeanthony.htm
Email
Anthony:
takebacktheus@gmail.com
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