Wash. Post: Bush's past on life and death

about time someone in the MSM put this out there.

I also nominate this dtory for the front page.

Get the truth out there.

That's cute!

understood too. It was all a heartless, unimaginably cynical show. Goes to show, the US government is still world-class in one thing: hypocrisy

Point is made very well in this DU thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1675026

though the byline suggests that it is only on the website - not in the print version.

not a mention of this on CBS nightly news with.........Campbell Brown. :eyes: They led with the story, actually showed both sides! Terri's husband telling everyone they'd better watch out because the slugs would start interfering in everyone's lives (like they haven't already) and that it was all political, and the religionazis waving their hands in the air waiting for a reprieve from the baby jebus. Jebus didn't show. :shrug:
If there was EVER a time for jebus to return, this is it. What is he waiting for?

It's an internet post, not a hard copy edition.

We have to spread the word to our friends and family, and write LTE's.

where he said we must err on the side of life and I can't stand it.

This would all bother me less if that is what they really did. It is more then the hypocrisy of bush and death penalty or the bill he signed in Texas.

How about with medical care in general? What if they said "It costs money but it saves lives and we must err on the side of life"

How about Iraq? What if they said "They might have weapons but they are cooperating with the inspectors now. Though our military is there and ready to attack now would kill tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens and many of our soldiers. We must always err on the side of life"

What about torture, homelessness and so on? "This is demeaning to all of life and we must always err on the side of life"

And on and on. This is not a pro-life atmosphere. Pro-life would mean...respectful of life.

I did hear John Conyers bring up this bill Bush signed when he spoke last night (it was immediately disputed by the other side as a life saving bill) but heard no one bring up the infant that was just removed from life support.

I suspect many people see a lot of difference between a ventilator and a feeding tube though.

this from the man who mocked death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker:

THIS IS WHAT HE SAID AND DID:

'Please,'
Bush whimpers,
his lips pursed in
mock desperation,
'don't kill me.'


Edited becuase image I previously posted was locked

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makes more of an impact anyway

911 changed everything goddamit!

All wars kill innocent people, yet Bush thought nothing about starting a bloody war. Why was Bush so willing to end the life of the Hussein regime, when it was fully contained, with a military budget half the size of Kuwait, under constant surveillance, criss-crossed by no fly zones?

And forget baby Sun and the older man. :mad:

It was Tucker Carlson who reported it, wasn't it? Some reporter that he felt safe with.

And I remember Karla Faye Tucker well too. I am against the death penalty, always, but even if I was for it under certain circumstances, this would have given me pause.
Death row conversions seem too easy, but I couldn't doubt hers. She really took responsibility for her crime too. King (or some interviewer) was saying to her about how her mom got her on drugs when she was 9 or something and that she was on drugs when she did the killing and didn't that lessen her guilt. She said no, that we all have some hard things in youth and hers might have been harder but at some point we grow up and make our own choices. I am paraphrasing and not saying it as well but I wished many of us outside of jail could realize that too.
She did not seem to mind dying either. She'd like to live for those she loved and those she could help. I am not easily impressed, but she impressed me and that was before I heard all the hardened jailers speak up for her.

It sounded like she did so much good in that jail, more good then bush ever did outside of it. But he not only didn't consider that request, he mocked her.

Here's a man who doesn't believe HE makes mistakes, ordering invasions, capital punishments and almost-tortures with nothing mroe than a faith in his own sanctity, telling the rest of the world to act humbly in matters of life and death.

That's a doozy... My jaw dropped when I read about Bush's Texas record on end of life issues. Schultz just had a congress woman on talking about that as well. He is rocking the mic today.

They will start with this and then go after abortion... Just wait.

and this is just more of the same prolife crap. I hope the repubs who said "Abortion's not the only issue" to me will now shut up and sit down and listen.

He, who so willingly put so many to death in Texas without even as much as a flinch. He, that has sent so many to their deaths in Iraq for oil and greed.
You are totally correct. He only respects life when it adds political capital to his balance sheet. :grr:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush

Bush has been criticized for overseeing the execution of 152 convicted criminals while governor, more than any other governor in the history of the United States. Texas's penal system allows the governor to grant a single 30-day reprieve for each offense, which Bush did for Henry Lee Lucas, only. It does not allow the governor to commute a sentence or grant pardons, except on the petition of the state parole board; however the governor's opinion is generally considered to carry a lot of weight with the members of the parole board, particularly since by the end of his term all 18 of them were Bush appointees. In any event, Bush made no attempt to intervene on behalf of any of the condemned, except Lucas. Bush has expressed his belief that all those executed were guilty, based on briefings by Alberto R. Gonzales, even though these briefings failed to mention critical factors, such as the fact that a condemned man's public defender slept through much of his case.


The 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker, who repented in prison and become a born-again Christian, was particularly controversial. Among those who unsuccessfully urged Bush to grant her clemency were Pope John Paul II and such prominent leaders of the Christian right as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. The case received further notoriety in 1999, when conservative journalist Tucker Carlson published a profile of Bush in Talk magazine in which he reported that, in an interview with Carlson as a CNN correspondent, Bush had mocked Karla Faye Tucker's appeal for clemency. Carlson cited this incident as an example of occasional "flashes of meanness" beneath "Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism". (Talk, (New York NY, Talk Magazine LLC) Vol 1 No 1 September 1999, "Devil May Care", pp103 - 110).

a hypocritical sociopath. Bush has nothing to stand on here....he needs to go back to his fake ranch and practice his social security scare speech. He's all over the place these days, accomplishing NOTHING!

Iraq invasion: "I feel GOOD!" And he smiled quite cheerily, like a kid who made a tough basket in a pickup basketball game.

Only a true fool, or someone who heard only lies and not the truth about what happened, would believe that this man respects life.

(She found jeebus too)

"find Jesus"...or at least exemplified the energy and compassion to others that we'd think someone who loved Jesus would have.

bush never did or if he did for a minute he lost him again

of life pronouncements.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3087387

Baby dies after hospital removes breathing tube

Case is the first in which a judge allowed a hospital to discontinue care

By LEIGH HOPPER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, nearly 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open, his mother said, and smacked his lips.
• • • • •

"I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive."

Wanda Hudson ,
mother of Sun Hudson
• • • • •

Then at 2 p.m. Tuesday, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his birth Sept. 25. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.

according to Froomkin, Bush signed this law in 1999:

Texas law allows hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining care, even if a patient's family members disagree.

have brought this up, not just Conyers. And I love how you used his own actions and then finished with "but we must err on the side of life". LOl. Oh, that would have been good.

Dems need some talking points of their own. In this case one point. Bush is a murdering hypocrite. Over and over. Every one of 'em. Bush is a baby killer. Bush is a child killer. Bush never errs on the side of life unless it means his Neocon congress can override the less Neocon reliable courts.

Where are the anti-abortionist right-to-lifers on this on this? A " medical staffer-gently removed." I bet it was not a Doctor or an RN.

180

It was so sad because it seemed as if she had no say. I don't remember if she was in Texas but I wouldn't be surprised.

What made it more pitiful is she didn't seem to have any family supporting her. The father was AWOL.

ON EDIT - Didn't realize someone had posted about this before.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2005/03/lifesupport_sto.html

Shrub Signed 1999 Law Allowing Life Support Removal over Surrogate's Objections

.... Both papers report that this is the first time in the United States a court has allowed life-sustaining treatment to be withdrawn from a pediatric patient over the objections of the child's parent. (The Dallas paper quotes John Paris, a bioethicist at Boston College, as its source.) If true, the unique Texas statute under which this saga was played out contributed in no small way to the outcome. As one of the laws co-authors (along with a roomful of other drafters, in 1999) let me explain.

Under chapter 166 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, if an attending physician disagrees with a surrogate over a life-and-death treatment decision, there must be an ethics committee consultation (with notice to the surrogate and an opportunity to participate). In a futility case such as Sun Hudson's, in which the treatment team is seeking to stop treatment deemed to be nonbeneficial, if the ethics committee agrees with the team, the hospital will be authorized to discontinue the disputed treatment (after a 10-day delay, during which the hospital must help try to find a facility that will accept a transfer of the patient). These provisions, which were added to Texas law in 1999, originally applied only to adult patients; in 2003; they were made applicable to disputes over treatment decisions for or on behalf of minors. (I hasten to add that one of the co-drafters in both 1999 and 2003 was the National Right to Life Committee. Witnesses who testified in support of the bill in 1999 included representatives of National Right to Life, Texas Right to Life, and the Hemlock Society. Our bill passed both houses, unanimously, both years, and the 1999 law was signed by then Governor George W. Bush.)


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3073295

March 8, 2005, 12:33AM
Hospitals can end life support
Decision hinges on patient's ability to pay, prognosis
A patient's inability to pay for medical care combined with a prognosis that renders further care futile are two reasons a hospital might suggest cutting off life support, the chief medical officer at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital said Monday.


Dr. David Pate's comments came as the family of Spiro Nikolouzos fights to keep St. Luke's from turning off the ventilator and artificial feedings keeping the 68-year-old grandfather alive. ....

Law allows removal
State law allows doctors to remove patients from life support if the hospital's ethics committee agrees, but it requires that the hospital give families 10 days to find another facility.


A similar case is still in the courts. Texas Children's Hospital wants to discontinue life support on 5-month-old Sun Hudson, who was diagnosed shortly after birth with a fatal form of dwarfism. His mother, Wanda Hudson, wants her son's care to continue at the hospital. ....

***************UNQUOTE***********

You'll notice that Bush did NOT sign the bill that made this law apply specifically to the baby. The bill Bush signed applied only to adults. It was changed to include minors in 2003.

Now does that change the fact that Bush is a hypocrite? Heck no. It appears that the bill Bush signed would have allow the hospital to remove the feeding tube in a case like Schiavo's. But chose your words carefully here.

And the Republican Party has a majority in Texas. I don't think anyone needs to bog down the explanation with the details you have noted.

If they're going to say that Bush signed the bill that led to the baby's death, that's misleading. He signed a bill that was later changed to include minors. Under the bill he signed, that baby would still be alive.

Do I think that makes him any less a hypocrite? No. But it does make a difference in how a statement should be worded. He's a big enough hypocrite without having to make misleading statements about him.

KICK

because they were saying Bush made it harder to have the right to die. Uh, I mean mercifully allow the terminally ill, etc to die. Uh, I mean...nevermind.

get HATE MAIL? Common people, if we want to get our message out it needs to be got out!

SAVE any emails you get from Repubs - like the ones asking you to pray for the soldiers and "pass this on" or the ones that ask you to write "God bless America" on the back of your mail envelopes. You KNOW who starts them and you usually have a wealth of emails to copy and put in your contacts from the numerous "Forwards" they get.

Remember, the Christian coalition said they took over the government by using direct mail. We can and need to do that too.


(I hate to get blasted all by myself)

By now it should be abundantly clear to everybody that Bush and his Admin. are the greatest HYPOCRITES the world has ever seen!

but, unfortunately, the GOP is in a vegetative state itself, which would explain their drastic measures and blatant hypocrisy (someone might pull THEIR feeding tubes of soma).

lack of consistency within his admin

The mask is starting to slip! (hope hope)

If Bush were honest (ok, ok..bear with me) and consistent concerning the Schiavo case, when asked his opinion he would scrunch up his face and in a whiny, little girl's voice he would mock her with: "Please, Mr. Bush....don't kill me." And then he'd let her die and still get a good night's sleep.

The real tragedy here is that a family's heartache is displayed for all to see, dissect, and available for each to render his or her own verdict. And, as usual in a case like this, Bush and the Republicans have grabbed it and, according to a leaked secret White House internal memo, were excited at the political ramifications.

Are you paying attention America? Especially those of you who voted for this fascist, asshole scumbag?

This is the Lazerous of Flip-Flopping!

Who would you want to make the decision about pulling the plug if you were in a vegetative state?

Spouse 79% 18776 votes

Parent 14% 3450 votes

Somebody else 7% 1686 votes

Total: 23912 votes

As of 1635 PST

Peace (and much, much less hypocrisy, please).

Found at today's AllHatNoCattle.net

I've just read an article on foxnews.com (I know I know, I do it just for the laughs I swear!), in which John Gibson says that "The Schiavo's Marriage Is Clearly a Sham" and goes on to validate this claim by stating "At this point Michael Schiavo is married to Terri Schiavo only for the purpose of ending her life. The reason I say that is that he has another "wife," has two kids by her and is leading another life."

This article can be found at the following link:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151086,00.html

The help that I need is regarding the (non)existence of Gibson's story. Is it true? And regardless, does anyone believe that Mr. Schiavo's rights should be revoked on those grounds?

Thanks for your help DU!

-Elruin

Make copies and place them in churches, shopping malls on every public board and all over the internet. The god of TX really changed his own image of god of the US!

at the mind-boggling cynical hypocrisy. Why is a white middle-class vegetable's "life" considered more important than his?

I think of him dying in his mother's arms and I just start to cry.

Just in case you didn't see my other message, I'd like to invite all DUers to visit my new web site, featuring a load of what's on my mind, Bill's Brain.

I'm still adding content, but my comments on the Schiavo fiasco (and much more) are there.

Please take a look. Thanks!

http://www.BillsBrain.com