Pull the plug on DeLay

"A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)"...READ WHOLE ARTICLE

From the guy who brought us these wonder quotes...
"The few, objecting House Democrats have so far cost Mrs. Schiavo two meals already today"
"Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort."
"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."
"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."
"Right now, murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida"
"Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away? It is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism."

NOW, LET'S LOOK AT THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE LA TIMES ARTICLE:
"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

"He had no consciousness that I could see," Braddick said. "He did a bit of moaning and groaning, I guess, but you could see there was no way he was coming back."

""Daddy did not want to be a vegetable," said Skogen, one of his daughters-in-law at the time. "There was no decision for the family to make. He made it for them."

"The preliminary decision to withhold dialysis and other treatments fell to Maxine along with Randall and her daughter Tena — and "Tom (DeLay) went along." He raised no objection, said the congressman's mother."

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

BUT OF COURSE, DELAY'S NOT GOING TO LET THIS GET IN THE WAY OF HIS "SAVING" TERRI

"The situation faced by the congressman's family was entirely different than Terri Schiavo's," said a spokesman for the majority leader, who declined requests for an interview.

"The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him," said Dan Allen, DeLay's press aide.

BUT AS I OFTEN SAY WHEN I READ WHAT REPUBLICANS SAY-BULLSHIT!!
According to the LA Times
- Both stricken patients were severely brain-damaged.
- Both were incapable of surviving without medical assistance.
- Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared from being kept alive by artificial means.
- Neither of them had a living will.

ANOTHER TRAGIC IRONY FROM THE DEATH OF DELAY'S FATHER WAS THAT-

In 1988, DeLay's father Charles built an "elevator-like device that would carry the family and friends down a 200-foot slope to the blue-green waters of Canyon Lake." (What, you don't have one of these at your home?)

Once he was finished, he and some family members climbed into the four-person trolley. However as soon as they got going, the trolley sped out of control and crashed. DeLay's father flew into a tree head first.

Now at the time, Tom DeLay was an outspoken defender of business against what he calls the crippling effects of "predatory, self-serving litigation."

However, what did he and his family do after his father's death? You'll never guess! Sued!!

FROM THE LA TIMES ARTICLE:
"The family then turned to lawyers. In 1990, the DeLays filed suit against Midcap Bearing Corp. of San Antonio and Lovejoy Inc. of Illinois, the distributor and maker of a coupling that the family said had failed and caused the tram to hurtle out of control.

The family's wrongful death lawsuit accused the companies of negligence and sought actual and punitive damages. Lawyers for the companies denied the allegations and countersued the surviving designer of the tram system, Jerry DeLay.

The DeLay family litigation sought unspecified compensation for, among other things, the dead father's "physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and trauma," and the mother's grief, sorrow and loss of companionship.

Their lawsuit also alleged violations of the Texas product liability law.

Rep. DeLay, who since has taken a leading role promoting tort reform, wants to rein in trial lawyers to protect American businesses from what he calls "frivolous, parasitic lawsuits" that raise insurance premiums and "kill jobs."

Last September, he expressed less than warm sentiment for attorneys when he took the floor of the House to condemn trial lawyers who, he said, "get fat off the pain" of plaintiffs and off "the hard work" of defendants.

Aides for DeLay defended his role as a plaintiff in the family lawsuit, saying he did not follow the legal case and was not aware of its final outcome.

The case was resolved in 1993 with payment of an undisclosed sum, said to be about $250,000, according to sources familiar with the out-of-court settlement. DeLay signed over his share of any proceeds to his mother, said his aides.

Three years later, DeLay cosponsored a bill specifically designed to override state laws on product liability such as the one cited in his family's lawsuit. The legislation provided sweeping exemptions for product sellers.

The 1996 bill was vetoed by President Clinton, who said he objected to the DeLay-backed measure because it "tilts against American families and would deprive them of the ability to recover fully when they are injured by a defective product."

AND AFTER ALL THAT, WHAT DOES TOMMY 'BALL SACK' DELAY'S MOTHER SAY ABOUT ALL THIS?
"She acknowledged questions comparing her family's decision in 1988 to the Schiavo conflict with a slight smile. "It's certainly interesting, isn't it?"

Yes Mrs. DeLay, it certainly is.