“I Would Leave The Tube In”
by digby
“You would have kept the tube in?” asked NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert.
Lieberman, a Demcoratic U.S. senator from Connecticut who ran as his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000, replied, “I would have kept the tube in.”
The exchange began when Russert mentioned Lieberman’s Republican House colleague, Rep. Christopher Shays.
Shays said he believed the GOP would suffer “repercussions” from voting last week to try to get the brain-damaged Florida woman’s feeding tube replaced.
“This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy. … There are going to be repercussions from this vote [on Schiavo’s constitutional rights],” Shays said. “There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.”
Russert asked Lieberman if he “agreed” with that statement.
“I don’t,” Lieberman said. And though he said Shays’ statement was “a very credible and respectable opinion, the fact is that, though I know a lot of people’s attitude toward the Schiavo case and other matters is affected by their faith and their sense of what religion tells them about morality, ultimately as members of Congress, as judges, as members of the Florida state Legislature, this is a matter of law. And the law exists to express our values.
“I have been saying this in speeches to students about why getting involved in government is so important. I always say the law is where we define the beginning of life and the end of life, and that’s exactly what was going on here,” Lieberman continued.
“And I think as a matter of law, if you go – particularly to the 14th Amendment, [you] can’t be denied due process, have your life or liberty taken without due process of law, that though the Congress’ involvement here was awkward, unconventional, it was justified to give this woman, more than her parents or husband, the opportunity for one more chance before her life was terminated by an act which was sanctioned by a court, by the state.”
Lieberman added, “These are very difficult decisions, but – of course, if you ask me what I would do if I was the Florida Legislature or any state legislature, I’d say that if somebody doesn’t have a living will and the next of kin disagree on whether the person should be kept alive or that is whether food and water should be taken away and her life ended – that really the benefit of the doubt ought to be given to life.”
In conclusion, Lieberman said, “The family member who wants to sustain her life ought to have that right because the judge really doesn’t know, though he heard the facts, one judge, what Terri Schiavo wanted. He made a best guess based on the evidence before him. That’s not enough when you’re talking about aggressively removing food and water to end someone’s life.”
“You would have kept the tube in?” asked NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert.
Lieberman replied, “I would have kept the tube in.”
Lieberman grossly misrepresented the legal issues and endorsed the novel conservative theory that a married adult’s parents should have equal say in these situations as his or her spouse — but that doesn’t make him a bad guy, right? And while the vast majority of Americans may have disagreed with this outrageous government intrusion (that he mildly calls “unconventional”) you can’t really hold it against him. He’s a man of integrity with deep religious beliefs. Just like these people:
Randall Terry must have been so pleased.
With all that talk about the law choosing when life begins and ends, how long before Joe switches on abortion? He’s hedging on birth control already. It’s only a matter of time…
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