In Ronald Brownstein’s LA Times article this AM, ‘Culture of Life’ Issues Split GOP, we see blatant signs of wishful thinking on the left, with “moral support” being given by the MSM. The Michael Moorites of the world must be all a twitter over articles like these that attempt to convince their fellow Americans that the center-right coalition that has firm control over the legislative and executive branches of our Federal government is beginning to splinter due to the “victory” by the Left in the Terri Schiavo debacle.

Yet as legal and political options for extending Schiavo’s life dwindled, so did public support for Washington’s involvement in the dispute, according to several national polls. In a CBS News survey, opposition was so widespread that even decisive majorities of Republicans, conservatives and white evangelical Christians said Bush and Congress should not have intervened.

No mention is made of the criticism of those polls, with the questions being severely skewed to obtain the results that the pollsters were looking for, I believe those are termed “push polls”. [From Real Clear Politics] Polls: Time, ABC News, CBS News, CNN/USA Today/Gallup, Fox News.

Now, when I read the rest of the article, Brownstein does not make the case that is stated by the headline, indeed, the body of the article seems to support just the opposite, with a few caveats. But this is a favorite tactic of our local bird-cage liner, and the editors of the copy desk, or at whatever level headlines are created, love to twist & mangle even their most liberal writers’ works to make them even more so. Consider these lines:

Operatives from the two parties divided predictably on the controversy’s long-term political effect. Some Democrats said they expected Bush and congressional Republicans would be hurt by the public recoil against Washington’s role, while most Republicans said the issue was unlikely to cause lasting damage and could help the party by motivating its most ardent supporters.
(…)
But it also reflects a belief among some GOP strategists that the case will energize the Republican base for 2006. And despite public resistance to federal involvement in this instance, these strategists think the overarching culture of life argument ultimately places Democrats in an untenable position.

“When you take [Democratic] opposition to partial-birth abortion at the beginning of life, and [acceptance of] pulling plugs at the end of life, you begin to get in a danger zone,” said one GOP strategist close to the White House. “It could be that this case reinforces a larger impression … of the Democratic Party.”

Sounds like the Democrats are the ones that will be hurt the most by any political fallout from this issue. How can you argue against “life” and believe that taking such a position will help you win the votes of rational, mainstream voters? Certainly it will get you the votes from the “Bush haters”, the “Death Advocates”, the “perpetual demonstrators”, etc., but hey, they already have a lock on those. I don’t see how the Dems in the House of Representatives that voted against the Terri Schiavo Bill, and those in the Senate that did their best to not let the Senate bill come to the floor, can look the American People in the eye and state that they have “our” best interest at heart. The words that I would like to use here are ones that I have promised my fellow alliance members I would avoid, but use your imagination!

Hugh Hewitt addresses this issue, and much more, in his response to Jeff Jarvis’ Easter post, Jumping the Shark for Jesus. Read Jeff (my MSNBC buddy), then read Hugh.

Many have written that the issues behind the Schiavo case are groundswell issues and the fallout from this will be a sea change in our politics. We have certainly seen how powerful the judiciary has become, able and willing to ignore the intent of Congress & the Executive branch, with this judicial arrogance going all the way up through the U.S. Supreme Court. This was not an issue that affects primarily a particular interest group. This affects all of us, as we are all going to die someday and the decisions made by us, or for us by outsiders, and the criteria for those decisions, including how much we will allow our government to interfere, is what this is all about. (db)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 28th, 2005 at 11:10 am and is filed under Culture of Life, Focus On Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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