Saturday, April 16, 2005
Howard Dean races to the bottom
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday that his party would wield the Terri Schiavo case against Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but for now needed to stay focused battling President Bush on Social Security.
"We're going to use Terri Schiavo later on," Dean said of the brain-damaged Floridian who died last month after her feeding tube was removed amid a swarm of political controversy.
While it was, according to Dean, "political grandstanding" for Congressional Republicans to intervene in the Schiavo case (to some of them it was), Dean is determined to "use Terry Schiavo" in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
For my part, I was repelled by the rhetoric used by both sides in the public discussion of the Schiavo case. Does Dr. Chairman Dean really think that it will help the Democrats or the cause of dying with dignity to "use Terry Schiavo" in the next two election cycles? He may be mistaken on both counts.
4 Comments:
By 
Final Historian, at
Sat Apr 16, 05:15:00 PM:
I am starting to wonder if Dean is the Doctor Kevorkian of the Democratic Party. In which case it makes sense for him to use the issue.
By Gordon Smith, at
Sat Apr 16, 10:04:00 PM:
It's interesting that when DeLay and Santorum used the Schiavo issue, you didn't get upset. But when Dean talks about using the Schiavo issue, you do get upset.
Is talking about it worse than doing it?
Secondly, you reckon that when Dean says "use Terri Schiavo", he means, "talk about DeLay and Santorum using Schiavo"? I do. Lots of people will. Your interpretation is very concrete.
I understand your need to interpret this sliver of information in the worst way possible, but there's some really truly nasty stuff going on your side of the aisle that you might consider addressing long before you start deconstructing Howard Dean.
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Apr 16, 11:21:00 PM:
Screwy, I think you didn't read my post carefully. I said I was "repelled by the rhetoric used by both sides," which I would say is a pretty strong indictment of "my side of the aisle" (and I am less definitively on a side of an aisle than you are, I might add).
Second, I don't think I did a lot of condemning of Dean (OK, the title of the post was a little harsh, but the text was focusing on the political effectiveness).
For what it is worth, I was against federalization of that case.
By 
, at
Sun Apr 17, 11:55:00 AM:
8-)
You're right. I'm definitely more of a partisan than you.
I'm waiting to hear you weigh in on the "constitutional option". I just watched the Sunday morning spinfests and felt that the Republicans were better prepared to argue this.
