Another Reason Why Medicine and Politics Don't Mix

Yet 1 more example comes to the surface today that John Kerry had it right all along....remember when Bush, Cheney, Gen Tommy Franks, (aided & abetted by practically the entire "press corpse") contradicted JK's assertions that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and likely escaped:

Document: Bin Laden Evaded U.S. Forces

White House - AP Cabinet & State
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a commander for Osama bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hide-out at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document.

The document, provided to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee "assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora." It is the first definitive statement from the Pentagon that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and evaded U.S. pursuers.
snip~
The events at Tora Bora were a point of contention during last year's presidential race, and Bush as well as Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that commanders did not know whether bin Laden was there when U.S. and allied Afghan forces attacked the area in December 2001.

Cheney said last Oct. 26 that Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, had "stated repeatedly it was not at all certain that bin Laden was in Tora Bora. He might have been there or in Pakistan or even Kashmir," the Indian-controlled Himalayan region.

Franks, now retired, wrote in an opinion column in The New York Times last Oct. 19, "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001." He added that intelligence assessments of his location varied, but bin Laden was "never within our grasp."

On several occasions in the days following publication of that column, Bush cited it on the campaign trail as evidence that bin Laden could have been in any of several countries in December 2001. "That's what Tommy Franks, who knew what he's talking about, said," Bush said on Oct. 27.

Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, lambasted Bush during the campaign for having missed a chance to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora, a mountainous area along the Pakistan border that became al-Qaida's last stand in Afghanistan. U.S. warplanes bombarded the area in December 2001, and Franks had Afghan soldiers lead the ground assault, backed by several thousand U.S. ground troops, including Special Forces, in a cave-to-cave search.

The newly revealed statement is contained in a document the Pentagon calls a "summary of evidence" against one of 558 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It was provided to the AP this week.

The evidence was summarized last December 14 for a Guantanamo Bay hearing to determine whether the prisoner was correctly held as an "enemy combatant."

The assertion about his efforts and bin Laden's escape is made as a statement of fact; it does not indicate how the information was obtained.
continue~
http://tinyurl.com/6bf8v

Life, death and cynical grandstanding
Political interference in Schiavo case is national embarrassment

Robert Scheer Creators Syndicate 03.22.05

I cannot remember a time when Congress and the president have acted with more egregious political opportunism and shameless trafficking in human misery than last weekend, leaping into the 15-year-long Terri Schiavo saga at the last possible moment as grandstanding defenders of the defenseless.
Although Schiavo's relatives on both sides of the issue are assuredly acting in good faith, national politicians certainly are not.

~continue~
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18766

~~leave it to Molly Ivins to tell it like it is:

Pull the plug on pandering
Congress, president have no business in Schiavo case

Molly Ivins Creators Syndicate 03.22.05

AUSTIN, Texas -- I write about the Terry Schiavo case both as one who has personally confronted the "pull the plug" question on several levels in recent years and as a staggered observer of this festival of political hypocrisy, opportunism and the trashing of constitutional law, common sense and common decency.
snip~
George W. Bush is neither a neurologist nor a medical ethicist. What on earth is he doing in this case?

continue~
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18762

This is good to read - glad to see this cleared up. There is so much medical misinformation out there yet everyone has a strong opinion. As a speech pathologist, I will chime in that cerebral palsy is about as different from anoxia status-post cardiac arrest as I can imagine and the summary in this post is right on.

Sometimes my local paper gets it just right.
Today they did it twice

http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05081/475285.stm

http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05081/475288.stm

I'm sending off a letter to tell them that I agree completely.

Regarding Senator Kerry, I confess that I am even more proud to have worked on his campaign now than I was while I was working on it. He has confirmed my suspicions - he is the real deal. He said he had our back, and even though he lost, he continues to work hard in defense of American principles. This is not to take away from any other Dems. We have many greats on our side. Yet.... Senator Kerry is exceptional, and I am proud to have supported him so enthusiastically.

I love Harry Reid. And I am pleased to hear Democrats, both Senators and Congressmen, speaking like they should be speaking, loudly, with vehemence and with facts, in defense of democracy. I want to thank those Democratic senators and congressmen, and other Democrats and especially independent progressives who have been taking the time to speak to Americans through TV, Radio and other venues. I believe this is key - and hope they know that we are all out here supporting them. We need to do what we can to make their voices heard across the country, to acquaint all Americans with a better choice. These people are our hope now, all of these leaders, and it seems they have come to realize this. To have the hope of a country placed in you is a mighty responsibility, one to which many appear to be rising admirably. Tonight, I feel grateful.

Regarding the CP reference by Santorum, it's hard to imagine even a non-informed person could make such a comparison. We see people with CP living and working out in the world all the time. For goodness sake, a fellow teacher at one school where I taught had CP. One of the smartest people I ever knew who used to kick my a** regularly at chess when she was 8 has CP. She can't walk and speaks with difficulty, but she's brilliant and makes a valuable contribution to society through her research position with a prestigious university.

What a complete idiot Santorum is.

ACTION ALERT!

On the initiative of the AFL-CIO, Thursday March 31 will be a Nation Day of Action to oppose the Bush Social Security privatization scheme. Demonstrations will be held from 12 noon to l p.m. at offices of Charles Schwab, the Wall Street brokerage house, in cities across the country

To support the National Day of Action, we urge our members to do one of two things:

1. Join the demonstration at noon

2. If you cannot attend, phone the Schwab office at 1-800-435-4000 between noon and 1 p.m. that day. Keep dialing until you get through. We'd like to jam their phones for the full hour.

When you get through, ask them to withdraw their support for the Bush plan to privatize Social Security. Be courteous but firm!

Local details for my area will be posted in the Forum under Pacific and Events.

Look for your local details via AFL-CIO but you don't at all have to be affiliated with them to do this. It is to be broad-based.

Amy
My neighbor with CP is the one who told me about http://www.whitehouse.org. Check it out!

I just heard some guy on television say that the Constitution gives Congress the right to set jurisdiction of the courts. Someone quick send me a copy of the Constitution as that is not in my copy. Could I have a defective copy? It was printed prior to the Bush administration.

Could I have a defective copy? It was printed prior to the Bush administration.
Posted by: Ellen Beth at March 22, 2005 11:29 PM

My chuckle for the night. Post more often!

DiAnne, I can't get into the website you linked to. It prompts for a password but doesn't offer a sign-up. What is it?

How is Bush gonna spin it if Santorum & conservative Catholics go with their recent trend not to favor the death penalty?!!

Bush has always been gung ho death penalty.
I find Catholics by & large to be more consistent on their position than fundamentalist Protestants like him.

Amy - let me check that out for you.

http://www.whitehouse.org should be the White House spoof site & it's fantastic!!

Amy

The link looks the same to me as typed the lst & 2nd time. When I click on the first one, I get the same thing as you did, & when I click on the second one (which appears identical) I get in. I have no explanation! Try it!

DiAnne, I got in with the second link. Could the pop-up be an attempt at sabotage?

DiAnne-
You're right. At the very least pro-life Catholics are more consistent and believeable on the pro-life issue. They are against the death penalty and abortion and euthanasia.

Other observances tonite....
*Billy Grahm's daughter just referred to Terri Schiavo's state as mental retardation. Are these people stuck on stupid or what? What part of NO CEREBRAL CORTEX don't they get? Terri Schiavo would be lucky at this point if her condition miraculously improved to mental retardation. Good grief.

*So Shrub did let bin Laden get away at Tora Bora. That means, oh no, JK was telling the truth after all and Shrub and Slick Dick were lying. Oh well, check this off as another of what I'm sure will be a long list of 'JK was rights.' At least AP gave JK props. I'm shocked.

This op-ed from today's NYT is a must read, IMHO, so I'm going to post it in its entirety...but here's the tiny link: http://tinyurl.com/7x9pu

Federalism Has a Right to Life, Too
By CHARLES FRIED

Cambridge, Mass. - In their intervention in the Terri Schiavo matter, Republicans in Congress and President Bush have, in a few brief legislative clauses, embraced the kind of free-floating judicial activism, disregard for orderly procedure and contempt for the integrity of state processes that they quite rightly have denounced and sought to discipline for decades.

On the substance, the law passed by Congress on Monday called for a federal court to decide whether Ms. Schiavo's constitutional rights had been violated at the state level. In this regard, it is worth quoting at length from a concurring opinion by Antonin Scalia, the president's favorite Supreme Court justice and occasionally my own as well, in a 1990 case from the Missouri courts involving precisely the same issues.

"The various opinions in this case portray quite clearly the difficult, indeed agonizing, questions that are presented by the constantly increasing power of science to keep the human body alive for longer than any reasonable person would want to inhabit it," Justice Scalia wrote. "The states have begun to grapple with these problems through legislation. I am concerned, from the tenor of today's opinions, that we are poised to confuse that enterprise as successfully as we have confused the enterprise of legislating concerning abortion - requiring it to be conducted against a background of federal constitutional imperatives that are unknown because they are being newly crafted from term to term. That would be a great misfortune."

Justice Scalia went on to say that he would have preferred that the court had announced, "clearly and promptly, that the federal courts have no business in this field." The problem, he insisted, was that "the point at which life becomes 'worthless,' and the point at which the means necessary to preserve it become 'extraordinary' or 'inappropriate,' are neither set forth in the Constitution nor known to the nine justices of this court any better than they are known to nine people picked at random from the Kansas City telephone directory."

Congress's intervention in the Schiavo case is equally mischievous. It demanded that a federal court decide this issue without giving any deference to state law or the previous course of state court proceedings. This is exactly the sort of episodic federal intervention without regard for the integrity of state processes that plagued death penalty cases for years, and that Congress moved to end when it passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. And the real possibility now of the case bouncing back and forth between the federal district court and the federal appeals court, and maybe even back to state court, is just what Congress tried to shut down in death penalty cases.

For years now, Congress has more and more stringently demanded that federal court intervention be limited to cases where the state courts have acted not just technically incorrectly, but with egregious lack of reason. Whatever might be said of the Florida state court proceedings in this case, they certainly have not crossed that line, and indeed probably accord with what state courts all over the country have ordered or permitted for years in these difficult and agonizing cases.

Finally, the law passed by Congress on Monday was an obvious attempt - under the pretense of allowing the determination of federal constitutional rights - to delay the outcome decreed by Florida state law with the hope of making that outcome impossible. That is precisely the worrisome tactic employed with increasingly imaginative stays and orders of re-litigation in a number of federal courts, most noticeably the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers nine Western states. And it is also precisely the sort of tactic that Congress sought to discipline in the Effective Death Penalty Act.

It is no good for politicians to try to justify this absurd departure from principles of federalism and respect for sound and orderly judicial administration by saying that, in this case, the life at stake is unquestionably innocent. For in many of the death penalty cases, the claim has also been that the prisoner had at least unfairly, and perhaps even incorrectly, been condemned to death.

What we have is many of the the same political leaders who denounced the Supreme Court's decision forbidding states from executing those who committed their crimes as juveniles now feel free to parachute in on a case that had been within a state court's purview for 15 years.

And here's a new argument for neo-con nepotism...

Cheney Defends Bush Appointments
Vice President Says Loyalists in Diplomatic Posts Will Strengthen U.S. Position

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58398-2005Mar22.html

Whoa! What's happening here? Is this genuine or is there something they want to hide... (Yes, I am a true cynic...)

Groups Urge Partial Lapse Of Patriot Act

Bloomberg News
Wednesday, March 23, 2005; Page A06

An unusual coalition of conservative groups and the American Civil Liberties Union opened a public campaign yesterday to scale back the enhanced surveillance powers granted to law enforcement after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The alliance, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, urged Congress to let sections of the USA Patriot Act expire at year's end and modify what it called other "extreme provisions" of the law. Sixteen provisions, all related to surveillance powers, will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress extends them.

The group, headed by former representative Bob Barr (R-Ga.), also urged President Bush in a letter to reconsider his support for full renewal of the law.

"We agree the Patriot Act is necessary to provide law enforcement with the resources it needs to defeat terrorism, but we are concerned that some of its provisions go beyond that mission and infringe on the rights of law-abiding Americans," the group said on its Web site, www.checksbalances.org.

Bush and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales have called on Congress to renew the Patriot Act in full. Gonzales said on Feb. 28 that although he would welcome a debate in Congress on the topic, "What I will not support are changes in law that would make America more vulnerable to terrorist attacks."

Drafted and enacted 45 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Patriot Act broadened the power of the FBI and police agencies to intercept communications, and allowed intelligence officials to share information from foreign surveillance investigations with law enforcement.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58068-2005Mar22.html

And the Bamboozlepalooza Tour continues... Be sure to get your t-shirts in the lobby.

Bush Warns Democrats About Opposing Accounts

By Michael A. Fletcher and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 23, 2005; Page A03

ALBUQUERQUE, March 22 -- President Bush concluded a three-state swing to sell his plan to restructure Social Security, warning Democratic opponents Tuesday that they will suffer political consequences if they continue to oppose his proposal without providing one of their own.

Flanked by Republican Sens. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) and John McCain (Ariz.), Bush invited Democrats "to come to the table" to help devise a solution to shore up Social Security's finances. "I believe there will be bad political consequences for people who are unwilling to sit down and talk about the issue," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56913-2005Mar22.html

Yeah, we believe there will be bad political consequences for people who are unwilling to sit down and talk about the issue too...especially for those who refuse to discuss it in open public venues...

Schiavo Case Puts Face on Rising Medical Costs
GOP Leaders Try to Cut Spending as They Fight to Save One of Program's Patients

By Jonathan Weisman and Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 23, 2005; Page A13

As Republican leaders in Congress move to trim billions of dollars from the Medicaid health program, they are simultaneously intervening to save the life of possibly the highest-profile Medicaid patient: Terri Schiavo.

The Schiavo case may put a human face on the problem of rising medical costs, both at the state and federal levels. In Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is pushing a dramatic restructuring of the Medicaid program, the cost of Schiavo's care has become political fodder. In Washington, where a fight over Medicaid spending threatens to scuttle the 2006 budget plan, the role of the program in preserving Schiavo's life is beginning to receive attention.

"At every opportunity, [House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay has sanctimoniously proclaimed his concern for the well-being of Terri Schiavo, saying he is only trying to ensure she has the chance 'we all deserve,' " the liberal Center for American Progress said in a statement Monday, echoing complaints of Democratic lawmakers and medical ethicists. "Just last week, DeLay marshaled a budget resolution through the House of Representatives that would cut funding for Medicaid by at least $15 billion, threatening the quality of care for people like Terri Schiavo."
snip~
Patient care at the Florida hospice where Schiavo lives averages about $80,000 a year, but the hospice now pays for much of her care. For two years, Medicaid has covered other medical costs, including prescription drugs, the attorneys have said in published reports.

Medicaid's share of Schiavo's care "is a big chunk," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who until this year was involved in the case as a state senator. "Governor Bush and President Bush are both professing deep concern for the rights of one disabled person, yet their rhetoric doesn't match their actions," she said.

Florida's Medicaid program is expected to cost about $14 billion this year, with the state covering 41 percent of the budget, said Jonathan Burns, spokesman for the state Agency for Health Care Administration. For every $1 Florida spends on Medicaid, it receives about $1.44 from the federal government in matching funds.

The governor has proposed limiting Medicaid spending and in essence giving each beneficiary a voucher to shop for a health plan. Advocates for the poor and disabled contend the approach would leave the most vulnerable without adequate coverage.

If it passes, "I guess Mrs. Schiavo or someone on her staff would have to find a network that will take care of her for the amount of money" the state provides, said Andrew Schneider, a Washington-based health care consultant who specializes in Medicaid.
snip~
Ron Pollack, executive director of the health care advocacy group Families USA, denounced the "two ironies" of the situation.

"At the same time congressional leaders were trying to keep Terri Schiavo alive, they voted to cut the Medicaid program that keeps many millions of people alive," he said in an interview. Jeb Bush, meanwhile, "is grandstanding about Terri Schiavo at the same time he is pushing real hard to place a limit on the dollars available for people's care, including care like Terri Schiavo is receiving," he said.

read entire article~
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58069-2005Mar22.html

Madame knows...

Florida Dem -
As for pro-life Catholics tending to be more consistent than fundamentalist Protestants I would add to the list of that some are antiwar as part of a pro-life position.

I had St. Patrick's dinner with a friend who is Catholic and she invited 2 Dominican sisters, a Priest from a Catholic U who in summer officiates some at Westminster Abbey, & a Nigerian priest who gave the prayer before the meal. He reminded us how lucky we were to have clear, clean drinking water (& yesterday was International Water Day, as billions don't have good water). He commented on the exceptional Napa Valley wine as well.

Another said, "They say they are spreading freedom and democracy but it always seems to end up as a war." Another told me it was not a coincidence that the local Indonesian community gathering (which was huge) happened on the same day as the tsunami. She said God is playing a big chess game. I in fact was asked for the link to this website.

I noticed a mention of the Baby Sun case on the DCP home page links to this thread but nothing about the case in the discussion... Sandy got the Baby Sun case rolling in the blogosphere, with the help of the Daou Report. Here's a link to her story in it:

Who Spoke For Baby Sun?
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=581

Underlying the futile histrionics of the Terri Schiavo case, is an issue that I believe most Americans never have had a chance to address, and that is, the practice of asking/requiring people to prepare "living wills" or "advanced directives". I would like to know who invented these documents in the first place and whom these documents are supposed to serve. They really do not serve the person who is the subject of the will or directive--for several reasons, not least the legal and moral reasons.
To me these living wills point to an extraordinary ambivalence or confusion in the law, our social mores, and in our morals. If I am not wrong, suicide is considered to be a crime and someone who assists a suicide is considered an accessory to a crime. On a social level, if someone stands by and watches another person commit suicide without trying to stop it, he/she would be looked upon as cowardly. Our morals tell us we should try as hard as we can to preserve human life.
In recent years, however, with the introduction of "living wills", we are asking people, in effect, to commit suicide in advance and to relieve others who might be on hand, of the responsibility of preserving life. And the polite thing, of course, is to please let our loved ones, our insurance companies, our government, and our doctors off the hook.
On an arctic expedition, or, let's say, during some kind of wartime evacuation, the weak or the wounded may be legitimately or judiciously left behind to die, when there is no practical way to transport them to safety. Sometimes such people may participate in this decision, and sometimes they are not able. Regardless, the deciding factor in their being left to die, would not ordinarily be a matter of, well I don't want to be identified with this or that kind of apparatus or this or that kind of stupor; the decision would be made based on the feasibility to transport that person or lack thereof.
I believe that the decision regarding prolonged treatment cannot and should not be made in advance for two reasons: one, it is immoral to ask or even allow a person to sign away their life in advance, and secondly, the prolongation of life through artificial means should ultimately be a simple matter of feasibility, a criterion which should be weighed collectively by all those commited to and involved in maintaining the life of the person--including the person him or herself, if possible, and only at the time that the question presents itself--with no one person having complete authority, regardless of title.
The media and political shenanigans surrounding the Terri Schiavo case have come nowhere near addressing the living will issue, even though this may definitely be the time to do this.

Laura,

I agree with you about the confusion over living wills, euthanasia, and the right for someone to chose to not accept extraordinary measures.

I do however disagree with the over-reaching of congress, the media and right-wings smear campaign against the husband, and the family's elevation to "sainthood.".

This is just a sad case and we all shouldn't be interfering in this family and judicial court matter.