Of Ducks and Shattered Heroes

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's not necessarily a duck. It may be a goose in disguise.

Now that Terri is off of life sustenance (life-support is machines making body organs work to keep someone alive -- sustenance is the food and drink we all need for life), I'm looking around to see who REALLY respects life and liberty for citizens of America. Or, in other words, who are the ducks and who are the geese?

Goose number one -- remember, they have to be disguised like ducks (Michael Schiavo, his sttorney Feros, judge Greer et al are not disguised; they wear their goosehood for all to see) -- has to be Harry Reid, Democratic Whip in the Senate. This from the Democratic Party platform, 2004: "We recommit to the ideal of people helping one another, an ideal as old as the faiths we follow and as great as the country we love. To those who are threatened we pledge protection, to those who are victims we promise justice, to those who are hopeless, we offer hope."

That's the quack of the duck for sure.

Here's a really misleaading quack: "I am pleased Senator Frist and I were able to pass the bill that protects the life of Terri Schiavo by allowing her parents to go to federal court. " But here's where we see goose feathers: the bill and the statement are irrelevant to the case at hand. There was plenty of time to do that AFTER Congress assured that Terri would be kept alive long enough. They refused to tackle that issue at all. So Reid is congratulating himself for doing nothing to help.

The House of Representatives passed a bill that would have helped Terri. Reid and my FORMER hero Bill Frist passed one that allows her to die. Reid's statement then goes on to blame the House: "If the House Republicans refuse to pass our bipartisan bill, they bear responsibility for the consequences." That Dawg won't fight, Sen. Reid -- the House bill would have saved Terri. Yours kills her.

So. First two geese -- Harry Reid and Bill Frist. (Frist breaks my heart because he's been one of my heroes. But as you'll see, my world this morning reverberates from heroes crashing from their pedestals.)

Obviously part of the battle here is between the judiciary and the legislative. The Federal legislative branch should have more power than the local judiciary -- but they obviously are afraid to take it, thereby giving more power to local judges!

But here comes the goose that REALLY hurts: The President of the United States.

I thought he was a duck. He walks like a duck. He talks like a duck: "The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all Americans are endowed by the Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, we celebrate the sacred gift of life. We have a responsibility in America to defend the life of the innocent and the powerless," the President said in his proclamation for National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2005.

But so far he's ducking the issue -- that makes him a goose.

Comes now the United States Supreme Court. Or, more accurately, doesn't come now. In refusing TWICE to hear Terri's case, they make the phrase "Equal Justice Under the Law" a sick joke. This is America, folks -- fight your own battles down there in the muck of the American hinterlands; don't bother us with cases that have to do with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So now we have 9 geese in ducks' clothing.

It's getting crowded in my barnyard of shattered heroes.

Add my own Senator, Sam Brownback, who co-sponsored the Senate bill. It never occurred to me that he would sponsor something so destructive to the process of saving Terri! Put aside the duck suit, Senator -- you've been "outted."

Where's Attorney General Gonzalez? If Reno could go in with Federal Marshals and get Evian why can't Gonzales go in and rescue Terri. Maybe he's mad because we sent Evian back to Cuba. That, at least, makes sense even if it's no excuse.I bet former Attorney General Ashcroft wouldn't sit there and do nothing. Or, maybe he would -- the way all my heroes are turning out with clay feet, he might, too.

You see, Terri functions as well now as our 38-year-old retarded son has all his life. When he was dying of pancreatitus (a 10% chance to live) a doctor asked if we would go ahead and let him die. They would see that he didn't suffer, he said. We said, without hesitation and in spite of the problems and expense he has meant in our lives -- "No. We don't make the choice of life or death. If we have to, we choose life." He recovered and is living a happy, comfortable (but still seriously disabled) life. He has -- and does -- mean everything to us.

Well, folks, I'm depressed and saddened. Heroes are crashing all around me, Terri is dying of starvation and dehydration and, frankly, my heart is broken.

I think I'll go take a nap now. I don't know when I'll want to come out from under the covers. Obviously everything I believe in -- the right to life, liberty et al -- is truly meaningless. Wake me when the Nazis leave.