Summer of Terri

I took no glee in the autopsy findings. It would have been surprising if it didn’t show what it did. I do find it sickening that Jeb Bush is going to investigate Michael Schiavo’s every movement on Feb. 25, 1990. I am past anger; so past it that I feel hostile toward any religious conservative (will use The New York Times term) for people who are trying to steal my America.

Yesterday, Dr. Arthur Caplan, Director of Bioethics at The University of Pennsylvania had this to say in the New York Times

The movement to say you’ve got to have Tom DeLay act as a third party witness before you can have medical treatment stopped seemed to be irrefutably silenced by the autopsy report.

Apparently he didn’t consider the Bush family. Can they let this go? No. I don’t know Jeb Bush’s reasons for wanting an investigation. Whether it’s for personal gain such as a VP bid in 2008 or for personal feelings, doesn’t matter.

Why are they investigating Michael Schiavo now? Wouldn’t it have been more expedient to have investigated him during the whole sad Terri affair? Because they had no reason to investigate him? God knows that they looked for anything to hang him with.

Why are they keeping the Terri thing alive now? To keep the nation further divided? If so it worked.

Governor Bush who vehemently fought the court-ordered removal of Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube, said he decided to seek an investigation after speaking with Dr. Jon R. Thogmartin, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, on Tuesday, a day before his report was released. According to records, the report says, a 911 call was placed about 5:40 a.m. on Feb. 25, 1990.

But Mr. Schiavo said in an interview with CNN’s Larry King in 2003 that he found his wife on the floor outside their bedroom about 4:30 a.m. and quickly called 911.

This investigation is being conducted based on Michael Schiavo’s recollections thirteen years after the fact on a nationally broadcast TV show.

Mr. Schiavo, who almost always directs his lawyer to speak on his behalf, issued his own response to the governor’s action on Friday. He said that his memory had always been fuzzy and that the timing of his 911 call had never been questioned.

The timing of Michael Schiavo’s call had never been questioned before. Why bring it up now? To help the Schindler family in their continuing quest to ruin Schiavo’s life? I don’t think any other family in United States history has been given so much help by the government. The Special Joint Congressional Hearing? God, the Schindler family has probably already been the most costly family in American history. Sorry if that offends you. Look at the amount of money the special Palm Sunday Congressional Session cost, and that’s just the beginning of the resource costs. Won’t even go into the amount of money Medicaid spent keeping Terri’s shell alive, or any of the other costs.

I will say this to people who want to stop the ACLU and other programs that they feel tax dollars might be spent on and wasted. I didn’t like my taxes going to Congress to stop Terri’s death.

“I have consistently said over the years that I didn’t wait but ‘ran’ to call 911 after Terri collapsed,” Mr. Schiavo said in a news release. He said he was not “wearing a watch or looking at a clock” that night.

I’m good with dates and times but I think if I were being interviewed on Larry King’s show, I too might get the time wrong. Nothing to do with Larry King; I would just be a bit nervous.

There’s only one possible charge that Michael Schiavo could be brought up on at this late date. Even if he had murdered his wife, which I seriously doubt, how could it be prove?

The Schindlers’ lawyer, David Gibbs, said on Friday that for years they had focused on fighting to prolong their daughter’s life, but that the autopsy report rekindled their curiosity about the time inconsistencies.

“This brings the focus back to what caused an otherwise healthy 26-year-old to collapse in a hallway for no apparent reason,” Mr. Gibbs said, “and why Michael Schiavo, the only eyewitness, has given all these inconsistent statements on what should be a fairly memorable event.”

How about fear blocking certain things out? How about so much media coverage being given that Michael Schiavo might have given slightly varying times to different people? People make much worse mistakes all the time. Michael Schiavo should never have gone on TV nor should he have spoken freely. Of course he didn’t realize that his words would come back to damn him.

Although religious conservatives applauded Mr. Bush’s earlier efforts to keep Ms. Schiavo alive, they sharply criticized him for not seizing custody of her in the days before she died, an option he said was not legal.

Is this about placating religious conservatives? Are they the only people who count in this country now?

What has happened to a country that was supposed to be about religious freedom and free speech?

I don’t understand how this investigation will proceed, nor do I understand what could be found out at this late date. But my voice no longer matters. I’m not a religious conservative. I don’t have to understand this investigation.

Earlier this week in a team blog that I write for, I talked about my love for this country. Nothing can ever change that, but I’m beginning to feel real hate toward many people who live here.

Somehow I was beginning to feel hope. I thought that meaningful dialogues could be exchanged. Don’t feel that way anymore. My country is going in ways that I never thought were possible. Instead of being the country where people come to feel free, and to start new productive meaningful lives, it’s a country so mired in hate that nothing good seems possible.

But my biggest failing and strength has always been, that at heart, I’m a hopeless optimist. I do think ,and very much hope, that this investigation will fall flat on its face. We will be watching.

And that includes all of you who think this is so wonderful and fitting. Savor your victories now. Don’t forget to count them

Because your day of reckoning is going to be here sooner than you think. There are too many rational Republicans who can no longer stand the things that are going on here.

We’re not going to let you get away with a bogus investigation of Michael Schiavo, as we’re not going to let you get away with so many other absurd and horrible things.

Enjoy your moment in the sun. Because a hard rain is going to fall, and not on me or the majority of the country.