Love me, feed me, never leave me

I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT I WON'T BE TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR TOO MUCH LONGER, BUT...

In the meantime, let's see what the right-wing ball sacks have said recently regarding everyone's favorite vegetable, especially our favorite cocks Tom "Soon to be Indicted" DeLay and Bill "I'm the only doctor who believes you can get aids from tears & sweat" Frist.



- Republican strategist: "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue. This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."

- Tom Delay: "The few, objecting House Democrats have so far cost Mrs. Schiavo two meals already today"

- Bill Frist (Claims he's been through this as a doctor): "I've been in a situation such as this many, many times before." (This of course is a lie, Frist is not a neurologist)

- Scott McClellan: "The President believes the presumption ought to be in favor of life. But the presumption, particularly in a situation like this, where you have someone that is at the mercy of others, ought to be in favor of life. And that's the President's view. This was narrowly tailored to address this case."

- Tom Delay: "Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort."

- President Bush: "Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities." (I bet the 40-million Americans without health insurance agree with you completely, Mr. President)

- Tom DeLay (On the Sean Hannity show): "We will do everything to enforce the power and authority of the Congress and no little judge sitting in a state district court in Florida is going to usurp the authority of Congress."

- Protester: "Terri represents a new category of people whose lives they are starting to say have no value."

- Rev. William J. Witt (Holding giant cutouts of the Ten Commandments) "There's a cultural war going on."

- Tom Fayette, preacher/protester: "There's a gap between man's law and God's law, and right now, the gap is hell."

- Tom DeLay: "We, as Congress, have every right to make sure that the constitutional rights of Terri Schiavo are protected, and that's what we're doing."

- Tom DeLay: "Right now, murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida"

- Tom DeLay: Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away? It is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism."

- Bill Frist: "Persistent vegetative state, which is what the court has ruled -- I question it. I question it based on a review of the video footage, which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office here in the Capitol. And that footage, to me, depicts something very different than persistent vegetative state."

YOU KNOW WHAT, BILLY FRIST CAN WATCH AN EDITED VIDEO TAPE AND TELL THAT TERRI IS ONLY HOURS AWAY FROM JUMPING OUT OF HER BED, MAYBE YOU SHOULD WATCH THE TAPE HERE AND YOU CAN DECIDE FOR YOURSELF. AFRAID YOU'RE NOT QUALIFIED TO DETERMINE THIS? DON'T SWEAT IT, NEITHER IS FRIST.

Columnist William Saletan had a chance to watch the tape, below is what he had to say:

"If you're going to scrutinize the fitness of family members to make medical decisions, you have to look at everyone. Take Schiavo's mom, who calls her daughter "my life." Schiavo's parents have circulated video clips purporting to show that their daughter responds to stimuli. Skeptics point out that the clips omit hours of unresponsiveness¡½suggesting that her "responses" may be random, and that doctors who examined her in person concluded that she wasn't really interacting with other people. Still, the videos tell a story. In one, Schiavo gags over an oral swab, and a male voice comments, "She don't like that, does she?" In another, her eyes fail to follow a balloon, and a voice says, "Terri, no, no. Come on." Then her eyes move, and the voice infers, "Oh, you see that, don't you, huh?" Schiavo's eyes bug out in a couple of videos, but only when her head slips, or is moved by her mother from its resting place. A voice in the background tells her, "Good job!" The videos are agonizing not because they show a woman regaining awareness, but because they show the people around her laboring to interpret every twitch that way.

In some scenes, Schiavo's mother speaks to her, kisses her, and shifts her position. The longest video, made surreptitiously by Schiavo's parents in violation of a court order, depicts them fishing for reactions. In the five-minute clip, her mother repeats one word 40 to 50 times. The word is "mommy" or "ma." When Schiavo fails to respond to a cue, her mother prods, "Look over at mommy." "Come on," she tells her daughter. "Over here," she says. "Hey." Not until the mother gets right up in the daughter's face does the daughter make a sound resembling a moan. If the daughter is expressing something about her mother, it looks as close to misery as to joy."