Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

Parados - you're another innocent in world diplomacy evidently. FYI the Iranians are NOT Arabs. Less talking, more reading, wouldn't come amiss <G>

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Source: Associated Press.

WASHINGTON ?- Early this week, Tom DeLay assumed an uncharacteristically visible role in the Terri Schiavo case, pressing Congress to intervene, invoking God and attacking Schiavo's husband before television cameras and on the House floor. Now, with the prospects of any intervention essentially dashed in the courts, he has slipped out of the spotlight.

DeLay, the House majority leader, is not alone. Republican responses, including those of President Bush and Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, have become muted in the face of the legal setbacks and of polls that show overwhelming disapproval of congressional intervention as well as a perception among the public that lawmakers attempting it were motivated by politics. A CBS News poll released Thursday found that 82 percent of respondents believed that the president and Congress should stay out of the case, while 13 percent thought they should intervene.

Republican congressional officials say the lower profile is partly just a reflection of the fact that Congress, having already returned once to pass a law that fought Schiavo's death, has again departed Washington for the Easter recess. It is also, they say, a gesture of respect to a dying woman and her family, rather than an accommodation to politics.

Still, for DeLay in particular, the decision to step forward in the first place ?- after weeks in which he had methodically avoided television cameras as he fended off questions about his ethics ?- may prove to be crucial in what could turn out to be his most difficult year in Congress. While the Schiavo case may have energized his conservative supporters, Democrats and some independent analysts say, it may also have thrust him into the national consciousness at the very moment his opponents are trying to make him a symbol of Republican excess and force another ethics investigation.

"Tom is doing everything backwards from the way I'd be inclined to do it," said one Democrat, Jim Wright, a fellow Texan who himself was forced out as speaker of the House in 1989 after failing to surmount challenges to his ethics and business dealings. "He seems to want to keep hostility at an agitated level."

Some Democrats have begun drawing parallels between DeLay and another Republican who eventually became a weight on his party, former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"The public is beginning to sense a whiff of extremism in the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "If it continues, it could prove very detrimental to them and good for us."

It is not just Democrats who share that view. In a regular e-mail commentary he distributes, former Sen. Dave Durenberger, R-Minn., wrote, "If I were a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota in 2006, I would make DeLay the issue in the campaign right now."

After being rebuked three times by the House ethics committee last year, DeLay has been linked to an investigation into campaign finance irregularities in Texas and potential violations of House travel rules. But he has angrily rejected suggestions that he seized on the Schiavo case to create distraction from those troubles, and aides say his involvement grew out of strongly held beliefs.

"Congressman DeLay certainly wasn't guided by polls," said his spokesman, Dan Allen.

"He saw something that needed to be done and worked with other leaders to make sure we accomplished it in the most expedited fashion possible," Allen said of the quickly enacted law that sent the case into the federal courts.

Republican strategists say they expect no political repercussions from the episode.

"I am not sure it raised his name ID," said Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "A month from now, people are not going to remember," he said, and 20 months from now, in the 2006 elections, "it will be irrelevant."

DeLay himself has linked the Schiavo case to his ethics problems. In a private speech to supporters, he drew a connection between the way that case was headed and the attacks against him ?- evidence, he suggested, of a coordinated campaign to undermine the American conservative movement.

"When they can knock out a leader, then no other leader will step forward for a while, because they don't want to go through the same thing," he told members of the Family Research Council, in remarks that were secretly recorded and then repeatedly played on television news. "If they go after and get a pastor, then other pastors shrink from what they should be doing."

"That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to destroy the conservative movement," he said.

Leaders of social conservatism commend DeLay's determination in pressing the Schiavo legislation and say it reflects a longtime but occasionally unrecognized commitment to issues favoring life.

"He doesn't go around crowing about it," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who worked with DeLay to produce a bill. "I don't think others have spoken enough about the work that he has done."

But Democrats could barely conceal their delight at the sight of DeLay on television again. They say his multiple interviews and appearances at news conferences provided a damaging close-up of a man with whom much of the public was previously unfamiliar.

The opposition has tried before, with little success, to make DeLay a liability for House Republicans. Lawmakers on the receiving end of those attacks say the efforts failed precisely because he is an unknown quantity to much of the country.

Rep. Christopher Shays, a moderate Republican from Connecticut whom the Democrats tried to tie closely to the House leadership in last year's election campaign, said of the voters in his district, "They didn't know who he is, and they didn't really care."

Yet there is evidence DeLay's visibility is on the rise. A Gallup poll taken in February showed that 53 percent of those questioned had formed an opinion of him, compared with only 28 percent in 1999. In recent weeks, even before the burst of attention over the Schiavo episode, he has been a subject of multiple news reports.

Frist, a former transplant surgeon who is considering a run for president, has also been dealing with the effects of intervention in the Schiavo case. Aides rebut Democratic criticism of him for suggesting, based on her medical records and his viewing of videotapes of her, that Schiavo is more sentient than has been found by doctors who have closely evaluated her condition.

"The suggestion by some that Senator Frist was making a 'diagnosis' in the Schiavo case is absurd," said his spokesman, Bob Stevenson. "Nowhere in his comments was he substituting his opinion for others. But with medical experts split on Terri Schiavo's condition and a woman's life at stake, he suggested the court solicit additional tests and attempt to reach a medical consensus on her condition."

HofT,

I am sure the people on the street in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia would not care one whit if Israel used a nuclear weapon in the Mideast. After all it is "only Iran".

I must be an innocent to actually think otherwise.

The CIA Report on Iran.
********************
Iran
Iran remains one of the most active countries seeking
to acquire WMD and ACW technology from abroad. In
doing so, Tehran is attempting to develop a domestic
capability to produce various types of
weapons?-chemical, biological, and nuclear?-and their
delivery systems. During the reporting period, the
evidence indicates determined Iranian efforts to
acquire WMD- and ACW-related equipment, materials, and
technology focused primarily on entities in Russia,
China, North Korea, and Western Europe.
Iran, a Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) States
party, already has manufactured and stockpiled
chemical weapons ?- including blister, blood, choking,
and probably nerve agents, and the bombs and artillery
shells to deliver them. During the first half of
2001, Tehran continued to seek production technology,
training, expertise, equipment, and chemicals from
entities in Russia and China that could be used to
help Iran reach its goal of having an indigenous nerve
agent production capability.
Tehran continued its efforts to seek considerable
dual-use biotechnical materials, equipment, and
expertise from abroad?-primarily from entities in
Russia and Western Europe?-ostensibly for civilian
uses. We judge that this equipment and know-how could
be applied to Iran's biological warfare (BW) program.
Iran probably began its offensive BW program during
the Iran-Iraq war, and it may have some limited
capability for BW deployment.
Iran also sought nuclear-related equipment, material,
and technical expertise from a variety of sources,
especially in Russia. Russia is continuing its work
on the construction of a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power
reactor at Bushehr that will be subject to
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
In addition, Russian entities continued to interact
with Iranian research centers on various other nuclear
fuel cycle activities. These projects will help Iran
augment its nuclear technology infrastructure, which
in turn would be useful in supporting nuclear
weapons-related research and development. The
expertise and technology gained, along with the
commercial channels and contacts
established?-particularly through the Bushehr nuclear
power plant project?-could be used to advance Iran's
nuclear weapons research and development program.
Beginning in January 1998, the Russian Government took
a number of steps to increase its oversight of
entities involved in dealings with Iran and other
states of proliferation concern. In 1999, it pushed a
new export control law through the Duma. Russian
firms, however, faced economic pressures to circumvent
these controls and did so in some cases. The Russian
Government, moreover, failed to enforce its export
controls in some cases regarding Iran. A component of
the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (MINATOM)
contracted with Iran to provide equipment clearly
intended for Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation
(AVLIS). Some key equipment was to have been
delivered in late 2000 but continues to be held up as
a result of US protests. AVLIS technology could
provide Iran the means to produce weapons-grade
uranium.
China pledged in October 1997 to halt cooperation on a
uranium conversion facility (UCF) and to forego any
new nuclear cooperation with Iran but said it would
complete cooperation on two nuclear projects: a small
research reactor and a zirconium production facility
at Esfahan that Iran will use to produce cladding for
reactor fuel[1]. As a party to the Treaty on the
Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Iran is
required to apply IAEA safeguards to nuclear fuel, but
safeguards are not required for the zirconium plant or
its products.
Iran has attempted to use its civilian nuclear energy
program, which is quite modest in scope, to justify
its efforts to establish domestically or otherwise
acquire assorted nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities.
Such capabilities, however, can support fissile
material production for a weapons program, and we
believe it is this objective that drives Iran's
efforts to acquire relevant facilities. For example,
Iran has sought to obtain turnkey facilities, such as
the UCF, that ostensibly would be used to support fuel
production for the Bushehr power plant. But the UCF
could be used in any number of ways to support fissile
material production needed for a nuclear
weapon?-specifically, production of uranium
hexafluoride for use as a feedstock for uranium
enrichment operations and production of uranium
compounds suitable for use as fuel in a plutonium
production reactor. In addition, we suspect that
Tehran most likely is interested in acquiring foreign
fissile material and technology for weapons
development as part of its overall nuclear weapons
program.
During the first six months of 2001, entities in
Russia, North Korea, and China continued to supply
crucial ballistic missile-related equipment,
technology, and expertise to Iran. Tehran is using
assistance from foreign suppliers and entities to
support current development and production programs
and to achieve its goal of becoming self-sufficient in
the production of ballistic missiles. Iran already is
producing Scud short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs)
and is in the late stages of developing the Shahab-3
medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM). Iran has built
and publicly displayed prototypes for the
Shahab‑3 and has tested the Shahab-3 three
times?-July 1998, July 2000, and September 2000. In
addition, Iran has publicly acknowledged the
development of a Shahab-4, originally calling it a
more capable ballistic missile than the Shahab-3 but
later categorizing it as solely a space launch vehicle
with no military applications. Iran's Defense
Minister also has publicly mentioned plans for a
"Shahab-5". Such statements, made against the
backdrop of sustained cooperation with Russian, North
Korean, and Chinese entities, strongly suggest that
Tehran intends to develop a longer-range ballistic
missile capability.
Iran continues to seek and acquire conventional
weapons and production technologies primarily from
Russia and China. Since Russia's public abrogation of
the 1995 Gore-Chernomyrdin Agreement in November 2000,
Iran has expressed interest in acquiring a variety of
Russian air, naval and ground weapons. In an effort
to lay the groundwork for new arms sales,
representatives of the Russian and Iranian governments
have exchanged high-level visits during negotiations
for a new framework agreement. Until that agreement
is concluded, Russia will continue to deliver on
existing contracts, but few new weapons contracts are
likely to be completed. Iran and Russia did agree on
the transfer of additional Mi-8, Mi-17, and Mi-171
transport helicopters, for which the new
military-technical cooperation agreement may not have
been needed.

Parados - check wind patterns on the day of the nuclear attacks. Radioactive plumes move with the wind, and all those you mention are upwind 98% of the time. Evidently you're not Indian or Pakistani, but shouldn't you care about those folks ALSO, even though they're no more Arab than the Iranians <G>

Who pissed in your cornflakes ? I was under the impression I was entitled to my opinion. You're the first person since I've joined to attack me personally and in the short time I've been here I've disagreed with a bunch of people. Repulsive is as repulsive does friend. Try some Gingko for that faulty memory, and remember that you have the right to log off the thread if you find it so macabre as to offend your obviously superior sensibilities, but I've been through every page on this lengthy post and no where has anyone sent out a call for your opinion on it. So you see, we have more in common than you think. We could meet and do lunch and cocktails. I'm sure you're just as charming in person as your genteel and welcoming comments to me indicate. So, lunch then?

Beautiful women never eat lunch, ya dimwit! We also never eat breakfast. You want to invite us to candlelit dinners at the best nightclubs in Roswell (?!), try with another one, as I'm leaving for the Far East tonight. All the best to both of you <G>

Beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder. I would most likely consider a woman who never ate breakfast or lunch an anorexic stick as opposed to a beauty, but this is, after all an opinion thread. Enjoy the Far East. Perhaps a little geisha training might sweeten your disposition.:wink:

Can't be sure. Ratings go up & down a couple percent all the time. But the dowturn is rather sudden and extreme. I mean, take the Gallup one. Ever since the elections, Bush's approval has been in the 49%-55% range. For all of the past month, it's been stable at exactly 51-52%. Now within three days a drop by 7%. The CBS poll has only been published three times since Bush's election, and it had his rating at 51%, 49% and 49%. This month, its down 6 points. I don't know - what else happened this week that could have caused the sudden change?

Not that I think it'll last much, mind you. But its supporting evidence to the polls that asked directly about the Schiavo case when it comes to showing Americans did not, on the whole, appreciate the GOP leadership's intervention here.

Oh, I just saw JustWonders' post on this. She suggests the drop could have been caused by rising gas prices. Good one - thats something I could never have picked up on. But I'm sceptic though. Havent gas prices been rising for a while now? Has that really been something of the last one month (re: the CBS poll)? And what about the Gallup poll - that showed a drop of no less than seven percent within three days. Have gas prices rocketed last week, specifically?

Gas prices have been in a yo-yo motion for some years now. It seems the "experts" in the field are saying that gas prices will probably ramain at current levels, but what do the experts know? LOL

I think JW's point was that just like in the Elian case, there is only a minority that agrees with the strident attempts at political intervention - but it agrees very intensely and might even let their next vote depend on it, while the majority that disagrees with it is likely to have forgotten most about it by the time of the next vote. I think that's probably correct.

at polling report dot com there are a couple more polls showing about the same drop in approval...except the Time poll.

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

It's also interesting to note that the "Don't Know" group has all the control. LOL

Perhaps Bush's falling poll numbers are indicative of an American populace's collective realization regarding the incompetence of this administration.

But I would also venture to guess that this latest intervention by Republicans in power, who made a blatant attemp at thwarting American federalism, is the most telling, and has probably forever tarnished America's trust in the Republican Party. As they have already demonstrated how far they are willing to go to intervene in our lives, we now know their true intentions.

We can't trust the Republican party, and we can't count on the Democratic party. Where's a poor American citizen to go?

Thee Doll House.

blue wrote:
It appears brains are too. HofT fails to understand much outside her limited viewpoint. Check her response to my sarcasm concerning her statement about 'nuking' Iran.

Dookie, Where are the poor American citizens to go - indeed! The two party system in this country has failed "all Americans" - even though most still doesn't realize it.

It's a horrible, I know, but this whole issue makes me wish Terri would hurry up and die so we can all get on with our lives and get back to what is important.

Like the Michael Jackson trial.

Just the one really. The Newsweek poll of March 17-18 also had Bush's rating down. That pleads against the supposition that it has to do with the Schiavo case, because that was before he got involved, right?

But both the Pew poll directly after and the Time and other previous polls before did not show such a drop. The Newsweek drop was a one-off until the CBS and Gallup polls suddenly showed even steeper drops, the Gallup one even within the three days. Which does suggest a correlation.

Dunno. We'll see. The responses to polls directly about the Schiavo case were unambiguious enough, in any case.