Another perspective: Should Terri Schiavo Live or Die?

Aish.com
Should Terri Schiavo Live or Die?
by Daniel Eisenberg, M.D.

The Terri Schiavo saga in Florida, where a patient in a vegetative state has recently had her feeding tube reinserted by order of the legislature and governor, reminds us of the reality of modern life. An inescapable result of the extraordinary technological progress of the last several decades has been that critically ill patients who would have died early in their illnesses, often in the relative comfort of their homes, are now kept alive much longer in hospitals, often suffering great pain.

In addition to the component of human misery involved in discussions of medical treatment of the irreversibly ill, the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, particularly the large percentage of healthcare consumed in the last six months of life, have led to calls to limit "futile" treatments. Today, when there are almost limitless therapeutic options but limited economic resources, society may not be willing to provide "useless" therapies to patients who will not benefit.

In secular ethics discussions, medical futility encompasses several issues only loosely related to one another. Futility of treatment is often confused with "futility" of life. The Torah teaches us that every moment of life is intrinsically valuable; life itself is never futile. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, a leading halachic authority of the past generation, points out that we have no "yardstick" by which to measure value of life. Even for a deaf, demented elderly man, incapable of doing any mitzvot, we must violate the Shabbat to save his life.1 It is not within our moral jurisdiction to decide what quality of life is "not worth living" and therefore unworthy of treatment.2

The only components that are open to halachic debate are those involving futility of treatment. From a Jewish perspective, we must ask whether the physician may withhold, and whether the patient may refuse, futile therapy.

MEDICAL FUTILITY IN HALACHA

The intrinsic value of life does not necessarily imply that every patient must be treated in every instance. Nor does this mean that we do not appreciate that death may be preferable to a life of extreme pain.3 As Rabbi Auerbach writes, we may pray for the death of a terminally ill patient4 who is in great pain, but we must never do anything to hasten his death. He also recognizes that inaction is sometimes the best approach when life is "bad and bitter."5 Despite the obligation to treat even the sickest patients, it is well established that patients do have limited autonomy in refusing treatment for terminal conditions, particularly when they are in intractable pain.6

Medical futility is a recognized concept in Jewish law.7 A treatment that will not reverse the condition to which it is being applied, even if successful, is an example of true medical futility. Performing CPR on a terminally ill patient whose heart has stopped -- not because of a cardiac abnormality, but because the patient has reached the point at which his body can no longer support life -- is truly futile and may be withheld.8 Reviving the patient may be possible, but cardiac arrest will almost certainly recur within a very short time.

This can be contrasted with performing CPR on an otherwise healthy individual who develops an irregular heart rhythm that will result in sudden death. If resuscitation is successful, the arrhythmia may be treated and the patient may live a long life. It goes without saying that this second patient must be resuscitated because the therapy is helpful and sometimes even curative.

ON THE DEATHBED

But, independent of the aspect of futility, in the case of the first patient, halacha would likely dictate that intervention is forbidden because of the principle of "goses" (the moribund patient). A patient on his deathbed, for whom no cure is possible and death will inevitably occur within three days, may not be disturbed at all and must be allowed to die.9 The Mishna compares the life of the goses to a flickering flame that will be extinguished if even slightly disturbed.10

Interestingly, the "goses" may not be touched at all except for comfort measures.11 Practically speaking, this means that when a patient is approaching death, one may not take his temperature, measure his pulse or blood pressure, and certainly may not draw his blood unless curative therapy or comfort measures will be applied based on the test results.12 In circumstances such as these, the physician may grounds in Jewish law to refuse to administer the "futile" therapy.

REFUSING THERAPY FOR THE TERMINALLY ILL

A second form of futile therapy involves a treatment that is extremely unlikely to be successful, but is intended to reverse the condition to which it is being applied. An example would be a patient with a cancer that has not been shown to be responsive to standard chemotherapy. The physician may offer the chemotherapy. But clearly, according to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, if the patient is in intractable pain and the therapy is not proven to be efficacious, the patient may refuse the physician's offer of a "futile" therapy that prolongs life without a reasonable expectation of cure or relief of pain.13

Rabbi Feinstein further states that in such a situation, the patient should not be treated unless a cure or pain relief is possible.14 Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach writes that while we cannot force the patient to accept the treatment, the patient should be encouraged to accept the therapy because of the intrinsic value of life lived even in extreme pain.15 Nevertheless, this would be a case where a patient can halachically refuse the futile treatment.

WHAT IS NON-TERMINAL ILLNESS?

It is important to note that Jewish law clearly distinguishes between terminal illness and progressively debilitating illness (a distinction that is often ignored in secular ethics discussions).

An incurable illness which will likely result in the death of the patient within one year is considered terminal with respect to Jewish law. A patient with such an illness or condition is called a "chayay sha'ah,"16 -- one whose life is "timed" or "time-limited." One who is expected to survive beyond a year is considered a "chayay olam" -- one whose life is considered "eternal" in the sense that their life expectancy is presumed indefinite and not limited.

Thus, in halacha, persistent vegetative state and Alzheimer's disease are not terminal conditions, per se, despite the fact that they are progressive, irreversible and inevitably result in death. Halacha insists that patients with these illnesses deserve the same full range of treatment that is made available to any other patient. They are not "terminal" (until the very end stages of their illnesses) and must be aggressively treated without regard to the apparent "futility" of their lives.

THE CASE OF TERRI SCHIAVO

Let us take the example of Terri Schiavo. She is not brain dead nor is she terminally ill. She is brain damaged and remains in what appears to be a persistent vegetative state. All of her bodily functions are essentially normal, but she lacks the ability to "meaningfully" interact with the outside world (although her parents claim that she does minimally respond to their presence and to outside stimuli).

Her impairment is cognitive and Judaism does not recognize any less of a right to treatment for one cognitively impaired than one mentally astute.

It is a denial of the Jewish ideal of the fundamental value of life that drives the forces that wish to remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. While Judaism does recognize quality of life in certain circumstances (such as the incurable terminally ill patient in intractable pain mentioned above), the Torah does not sanction euthanasia in any situation. To remove the feeding tube from a patient whose only impairment is cognitive is simply murder.

We must ask ourselves when we view images of cognitively impaired patients such as Terri Schiavo whether the pain that we feel is Terri's or whether it is our own. While we may suffer watching movies of the severely brain damaged, it is our own thoughts of the horror of a life without cognition that drives us to project that pain onto the victim who may not be suffering at all.

The key to analyzing any situation is to realize that good ethics start with good facts. One must provide the posek (halachic decisor) with an accurate, honest, and thorough assessment of the patient's medical condition. Only then can a halachically valid and ethically proper decision be made.

Adapted from an article that appeared in Viewpoint: National Council of Young Israel, Winter 1996 entitled: "HALACHIC ISSUES REGARDING FUTILITY OF MEDICAL TREATMENT: Applications To Nutrition And Hydration In The Terminally Ill Patient

FOOTNOTES
1 Auerbach, Rav Shlomo Zalman, "Responsum Regarding a Very Sick Patient," Halacha U'Refuah, vol. 3, p60

2 Auerbach, Rav Shlomo Zalman, "Treatment of the Dying," Halacha U'Refuah, vol. 2, p. 131: "a person is not master of his body to relinquish even one moment"

3 Aruch Hashulchan, Yoreh Deah, 339:1: "...even though we see that he is suffering greatly in his moribund state (a goses) and death would be preferable, nevertheless it is forbidden to do anything to hasten his death, for the world and everything in it belongs to Hashem, and this is His will."

4 Ran, Nedarim 40a

5 Auerbach, ibid.

6 Feinstein, Rav Moshe, Igros Moshe, Choshen Mishpat II, Volume 7, siman 74, p.311-315.

7 Eisenberg, Dr. Daniel, "Futility of Treatment," Maimonides: Health in the Jewish World, Vol. 2, No. 3, Fall, 1996

8 Nishmas Avraham, Yoreh Deah, siman 339, sif katan 4, p.445-446

9 Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, 339:1

10 Shabbos 151b and Smachos 1:4

11 Igros Moshe, Choshen Mishpat II, Volume 7, siman 73:3, p.305

12 Opinion of Rav Auerbach in: Abraham , Dr. Abraham S. The Comprehensive Guide to Medical Halacha, Revised edition, Chpt. 38, p.192, 1996 and Nishmas Avraham, Yoreh Deah, siman 339, sif katan 3, p.444

13 Igros Moshe, Choshen Mishpat II, Volume 7, siman 73:1, p. 304

14 Igros Moshe, Choshen Mishpat II, Volume 7, siman 74:1, p. 311-312

15 "Treatment of the Dying (Goses)," Halacha U'Refuah, vol. 2, p. 131:: "if the patient is G-d-fearing and mentally intact, try very hard to convince him that better is one moment of tshuvah in this world than eternity in the world to come" 16 Feinstein, Rav Moshe, Igros Moshe, Choshen Mishpat II, Volume 7, siman 75:1, p.315

End of Life Issues in Halacha English Bibliography

Abraham, Abraham S.: The Comprehensive Guide to Medical Halacha, revised edition, Feldheim Publishers, 1996

Angel, Rabbi Marc D.: Halacha and Hospice. Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society XII: 17-26, 1986

Berman, Rabbi Anshel: From the Legacy of Rav Moshe Feinstein, z"l.. Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society XIII: 5-19, 1987

Bleich, Rabbi J. David: Judaism and Healing: Halakhic Perspectives, Ktav Publishing House, Inc. 1981

Friedman, Dr. Fred: The Chronic Vegetative Patient: A Torah Perspective. Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society XXVI: 88-109, 1993

Herring, Rabbi Basil F.: Euthanasia. Jewish Ethics and Halakhah for Our Time, Ktav Publishing House, Inc. Yeshiva University Press, 67-90.

Ifrah, Rabbi A. Jeff: The Living Will. Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society XXIV: 121-152, 1992

Jakobovits, Rabbi Immanuel, The Dying and Their Treatment, Jewish Medical Ethics, Bloch Publishing Company, 119-125, 1975

Rosner, Dr. Fred: Jewish Perspectives On Issues of Death and Dying. Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society XI: 50-69, 1986

Rosner, Dr. Fred and Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler: Death and Dying, Practical Medical Halacha, Third Revised Edition, Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, Ktav Publishing House.

Rosner, Dr. Fred: Rationing of Medical Care: The Jewish View. Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society VI: 21-32, 1983

Rosner, Dr. Fred: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein on the Treatment of the Terminally Ill, Modern Medicine and Jewish Ethics, Ktav Publishing House, Inc. Yeshiva University Press, 233-246, 1991

Schostak, Rabbi Zev: Ethical Guidelines for Treatment of the Dying Elderly. Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society XXII: 62-86, 1991

Steinberg, Dr. Avraham: On Death and Dying. A Concise Response: Jewish Medical Law, Beit-Shamai Publications, Inc., 148-154, 1989

Weiner, Rabbi Yaakov: Ye Shall Surely Heal: Medical Ethics From a Halachic Perspective, Jerusalem Center For Research, 1995

Zwiebel, Chaim Dovid: A Matter of Life and Death: Organ Transplants and the New RCA "Health Care Proxy". The Jewish Observer, Summer 1991: 11-14

A Matter of Life and Death-- Revisited. The Jewish Observer, October, 1991: 11-22 (Letters of response by Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler, Dr. Yoel Jacobovits, and Chaim Dovid Zwiebel)

See also "The Terri Schiavo Case: Related Ethical Dilemmas."

Author Biography:

Dr. Daniel Eisenberg is with the Department of Radiology at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA and an Assistant Professor of Diagnostic Imaging at Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine. He has taught a weekly Jewish medical ethics class for the past 10 years. He moderates the monthly Jewish medical ethics study group at Albert Einstein Medical Center and lectures internationally on topics in Jewish medical ethics.

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GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo

ABC News
GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo
Memo, Obtained by ABC News, Was Circulated Among Senate Republicans

Mar. 21, 2005 - The following memo listing talking points on the Terri Schiavo case was circulated among Republican senators on the floor of the Senate.

This is an exact, full copy of the document obtained exclusively by ABC News and first reported Friday, March 18, 2005, by Linda Douglass on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."

S. 529, The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act

Teri (sic) Schiavo is subject to an order that her feeding tubes will be disconnected on March 18, 2005 at 1p.m.

The Senate needs to act this week, before the Budget Act is pending business, or Terri's family will not have a remedy in federal court.

This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.

This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.

The bill is very limited and defines custody as "those parties authorized or directed by a court order to withdraw or withhold food, fluids, or medical treatment."

There is an exemption for a proceeding "which no party disputes, and the court finds, that the incapacitated person while having capacity, had executed a written advance directive valid under applicably law that clearly authorized the withholding or or (sic) withdrawl (sic) of food and fluids or medical treatment in the applicable circumstances."

Incapacitated persons are defined as those "presently incapable of making relevant decisions concerning the provision, withholding or withdrawl (sic) of food fluids or medical treatment under applicable state law."

This legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy.

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The Days Of Our Lives

digbysblog.blogspot.com

The Days Of Our Lives

Tom DeLay of Texas says:

"Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away - it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism," DeLay said. "Mr. Schiavo's attorney's characterization of the premeditated starvation and dehydration of a helpless woman as 'her dying process' is as disturbing as it is unacceptable. What is happening to her is not compassion - it is homicide. She doesn't need to die, and as long as Terri Schiavo can breathe and her supporters can pray, we will not rest."

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.

Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.

And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.

Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.

This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.

This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die.

One of the things that we need to help America understand is that there is a big difference between the way the two parties perceive the role of government in its citizens personal lives. Democrats want the government to collect money from all its citizens in order to deliver services to the people. The Republicans want the government to collect money from working people in order to dictate individual citizen's personal decisions. You tell me which is the bigger intrusion.

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If Jesus returns, Karl Rove will kill him

freepress.org

If Jesus returns, Karl Rove will kill him
Harvey Wasserman

March 21, 2005

As we enter another Easter Season, it's become all too obvious that if Christ returns, those who hate in Jesus's name will have him slimed, then killed.

Christ was a long-haired peace activist who would have hated the war in Iraq. "Blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus said in his defining Sermon on the Mount. "Turn the other cheek...Love thy neighbor."

Such hippie-radical ideals are the "Christian" right wing's worst nightmare. The GOP would never tolerate an upstart like Jesus gathering a following in the face of their corporate-fundamentalist crusade. These are Christians who love power but would despise the actual Christ, just as they love a Zionist Israel but can't tolerate actual Jews.

In the wake of Jesus's exemplary life of non-violent rebellion, a perverse liturgy weighted by twenty centuries of intolerant bloodthirsty bigotry has erupted in his name. Attacks on people of color, on nations with oil, on humans of the same gender who love each other, on youth who enjoy sex….all have become enemies of a new fundamentalist crusade doing in Christ's name things that would have left him sickened and horrified.

In large part through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus came to be viewed as Divine because he spoke eloquently for a gracious, loving God.

Karl Rove, Tom DeLay and their ilk believe George Bush and his corporate-fundamentalist minions speak to and for a very different kind of God, one with characteristics at war with those described by Christ.

Bush-Rove's Divinity is a nasty dictator, defined by hate and greed, intolerance and hypocrisy.

Christ kicked the moneychangers out of the temple. Rove-DeLay's Republicans have enshrined them.

Christ spoke of a God of compassion and joy.

Today's so-called Christian fundamentalists worship one of greed-driven warmongering totalitarianism. The only way to salvation, they say is THEIR way, through a spiteful God that hates all Jesus preached.

As Tecumseh, the great Shawnee warrior, shouted at William Henry Harrison in the early 1800s, "You killed the son of your God, then you worshipped him when he was dead, and now you kill those who choose not to follow him."

If Christ came back today to resume preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Karl Rove would slime him in the media, then kill him outright, then turn his words into right wing hatespeak, then kill those who refuse to follow in his name.

If Christ came back to organize against Bush's war, Rove's pet bloviators would shriek about Mary Magdalene. Isn't that her seated next to Christ in DaVinci's "Last Supper"? Wasn't she unmarried, pregnant with Christ's bastard child, catching his blood dripping from the cross?

Rush Limbaugh would demand to know what right did the self-proclaimed "Son of God" had to a relationship out of wedlock? Who was he to feed those loaves and fishes to the undeserving poor, prolonging the existence of inferior racial stock? Who was he to attack those moneychangers who are the Elect of God and the sponsors of Rush's air time?

Then O'Reilly would slime the Easter thing. A self-anointed "peace prophet" rising from the tomb? Poppycock, he'd say. Just another pinko hippie terrorist conspiracy theory.

But if Christ persisted, and built a following like, say, Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez or Nelson Mandela…well….they'd kill him.

They'd set it up to blame someone else, like, say the Jews, or the terrorists, or the Willie Hortons. They'd find some patsy to take the fall for the assassination.

Rove would cloud his death in shadowy scandal. Stories would surface unconfirmed debts. Or tainted investments. Maybe something about hashish, no stranger to the region.

Hannity would feature some lovers he jilted. There'd be rumors he was gay. Talk of a love triangle. Ugly gossip about Mary and Judas. False leads about Jews wanting him dead. New doubts about that "virgin birth."

Whatever it would take to rub the sheen off an anti-war "Son of God" and to turn his death tawdry, Rove would do.

But would Jesus stand for the slaughter of 100,000 Iraqis in his name merely because of oil and dubious Biblical prophecy? How would Christ view a president in love with the gas chamber and electric chair? What would Jesus, who hated hypocrisy above all, say about a Bush who scampers back to prolong the life of a brain-dead woman who wanted to die, but who gleefully executes 150 people as governor and as many more as president as he can get his hands on? How would Jesus cope with a self-proclaimed Divinity demanding the death penalty for children?

What would Jesus think of the torture in American prisons, where much the same is being done to innocent inmates as was done to Christ himself? Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" stands as a documentary of the daily torture and slaughter of too many of the 2.2 million prisoners held in the US military and civilian gulag, a barbaric prison system that makes the Romans' look benign by comparison.

Systematic sexual abuse by both prison guards and Catholic priests? The wholesale slaughter of Iraqi children? The debasement by corporate money of both church and state?

Christ would lead the non-violent charge against these cornerstones of GOP rule---until Rove killed him.

What would Jesus do about gay marriage? "Love they neighbor," he'd say.

What business is it of those who use his name, he would ask, to prolong bigotry and intolerance just as 50 years ago those same cynical haters claimed Biblical sanction for laws preventing people of color from marrying the white people they loved.

Christ would never stand for such a hate campaign. So Karl Rove would have him killed.

Hitler claimed Christ was an Aryan supremacist. Now Rove, DeLay & company use him to justify dictatorial, greed-approving, gay-hating, war loving, torture-is-fine bigotry.

Easter says otherwise. It should remind us that if Jesus returned to preach the Gandhian love-thy-neighbor subversion with which he challenged the Romans, Karl Rove would do what Pilate did.

But Rove would be better at the spin.

--

HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE US is at www.harveywasserman.com, as is his GLIMPSE OF THE BIG LIGHT: LOSING PARENTS, FINDING SPIRIT.

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Our Terrorist-Friendly Borders

The New York Times
March 21, 2005

Our Terrorist-Friendly Borders

After the Sept. 11 attacks, it was shocking to learn how easily the hijackers entered the country. What is shocking today is how little progress has been made in securing our borders. Terrorists may well be entering the country by crossing from Mexico or Canada. But it is just as likely that they are coming in the way the Sept. 11 hijackers did: at airports, slipping through the Swiss-cheese security system now in place.

Until this year, immigration officials routinely handed phony travel documents back to people caught trying to enter illegally, and even now visitors are not always required to show the simplest of evidence that they are truly here on a visit: a return ticket. The government still does not have a workable system for monitoring whether visa holders actually leave when their visas run out.

At Senate hearings last week, it was clear that the sense of urgency the nation felt after Sept. 11 has faltered. Only 2 of the 27 "visa-waiver countries," whose citizens can enter the United States without visas, are expected to meet the Oct. 26 deadline for having new machine-readable passports - which was extended from Oct. 1, 2003. And U.S.-Visit, a much-heralded new system for tracking arrivals and departures, has been rolling out at a glacial pace.

One of the most important tasks Michael Chertoff, the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Congress jointly face is pulling in the welcome mat for would-be terrorists. If Mr. Chertoff does not have the resources or legal authority he needs to make the borders safe, he should say so publicly, and often. Among the areas that need to be attended to are these:

1. More Resources at the Borders - A growing number of non-Mexicans are crossing over the Mexican border. And suspected terrorists have long been entering the country from Canada. More guards need to be put in place, and there should be more use of fences and ground sensors to detect movement.

2. Better Means of Tracking People Who Overstay Their Visas - One of the biggest sources of illegal immigration is people who enter the country legally but decide not to leave. The Department of Homeland Security must push to complete work on the U.S.-Visit system so that the government can identify people whose visas have expired.

3. Better Information for Front-Line Immigration Officials - Stolen and lost passports are a major terrorist tool, and not enough is being done to detect them. There needs to be a greater international effort to centralize data about lost and stolen passports, and the data needs to be made available on computers so front-line immigration officials can consult it before admitting a visitor.

4. Shorter Lengths of Stay for Visa Holders - Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were admitted as tourists and given automatic six-month stays, far longer than the typical vacation. Lengths of stay should be more precisely tailored to the needs of individual visitors - tourism, study or visiting relatives. This may require more resources, but it is worth it to ensure that terrorists are not guaranteed a half-year to prepare an attack.

5. Tougher State ID Requirements - The Sept. 11 hijackers obtained 13 driver's licenses. The rules need to be re-evaluated, so non-citizens cannot get such high-quality identification. This is a complicated issue. Congress needs to find an answer that would not violate civil liberties as some national ID programs would, and also gives undocumented residents access to some kind of driver's license for safety and insurance reasons.

Getting terrorists into the United States is a vital step in most of the worst terrorist scenarios. We now know that Al Qaeda has travel facilitators, who are experts at exploiting the weak points in our border security. The federal government needs to act quickly and forcefully to make their jobs harder, and the nation safer.

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Keeping Sgt. Lazo Out of Cuba

The New York Times
March 21, 2005

Keeping Sgt. Lazo Out of Cuba
By BOB HERBERT

"Sometimes you just have to pray." - Carlos Lazo

Washington

Sgt. Carlos Lazo, a medic who returned to the U.S. from Iraq two weeks ago, still has the searing images of the ferocious assault on Falluja racing through his head. He drove an ambulance during the campaign and was accompanied by two buddies, who were also medics. His buddies mostly rode in the rear with the wounded.

At times the battle raged so loudly the three friends could barely hear one another. With earth-shaking mortars exploding all around them, and with the nearly constant din of gunfire and other explosives, Sergeant Lazo could not always be sure his buddies were all right.

"We would sing so we could hear one another," he said. "They called us the Latin team. All three of us were Latin American. One was Puerto Rican, one was Mexican, and I am Cuban-American. We would sing Spanish songs, sing loud, and then we would know everything was O.K."

Living through the combat in Falluja was "extremely intense," he said. "It was very sad, you know, to see somebody talking, like two hours before, and then later to see that person wounded, screaming. And what you try to do is calm him down, saying: 'Hey, relax, my brother. Everything is going to be O.K.' "

Sergeant Lazo, who turned 40 yesterday, is a member of the Washington State National Guard. His team of medics, which performed heroically throughout its tour in Iraq, was attached to a Marine regiment for the Falluja offensive. I interviewed the sergeant in Washington, D.C., where he is seeking support for a new, more personal mission.

An American citizen, Sergeant Lazo has two teenaged sons in Havana. He visits them as often as he can, but they do not want to emigrate to the U.S. Last June, during a two-week leave from Iraq, the sergeant visited relatives at his home in Seattle, then flew to Miami, where he had planned to board a flight to Cuba for a brief visit with his sons. He wanted very much to see them before heading back to Iraq.

But tough new restrictions on travel to Cuba by individuals with relatives on the island were about to take effect. "I went to the airport, but they wouldn't let anybody board the planes," Sergeant Lazo said. "There were two more days before the restrictions would take place, but they told me the planes were leaving empty."

The planes were flying to Cuba to pick up Cuban-Americans traveling back to the U.S. In anticipation of the tighter rules, no new passengers were allowed to fly to Cuba. Sergeant Lazo had to return to Iraq without seeing his sons.

Under the old rules, individuals authorized to visit relatives in Cuba could go there once a year, and more often in the case of family emergencies. They could visit cousins, aunts and uncles, as well as immediate relatives.

But with President Bush facing a re-election campaign, and hard-line Cubans in Florida complaining that the administration was not being aggressive enough with Fidel Castro, the rules were changed. Now relatives can visit just once every three years, and the visits must be limited to the immediate family. Emergency visits are not allowed.

"If my father or one of my sons is dying," said Sergeant Lazo - he paused to knock loudly on a wooden table - "I couldn't be with him."

The sergeant has not seen his sons in more than two years, and he will not be allowed to see them until next year. His new mission is to seek an end to the ban on travel to Cuba. He is being aided in this effort by the Center for International Policy, which has long opposed the travel restrictions.

Sergeant Lazo told me he never had any second thoughts about going off to Iraq. "I signed up for the National Guard and I swore to defend the United States, my adopted country," he said. "My duty was to serve."

But he thinks it's unreasonable for the government, which he was willing to die for, to prevent him from seeing his children.

The arbitrary, politically motivated restrictions on travel to Cuba are cruel, counterproductive and, frankly, absurd. They have hardly any real support outside the small group of aging anti-Castro reactionaries in South Florida. The restrictions are part of a 45-year-old U.S. embargo that has been nothing short of a complete and abject failure.

As long as these policies remain in effect, real people, like Sergeant Lazo, a true American patriot, will continue to suffer unnecessarily.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

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The U.S. may pay for its success in Iraq

The Daily Star
dailystar.com.lb

Monday, March 21, 2005
The U.S. may pay for its success in Iraq
By Trita Parsi

Analysts have long argued that the interests of Iran and America largely coincide and that their poor relations have political rather than strategic roots. Many expected the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to bring these common interests to the forefront and end the U.S.-Iran estrangement. Instead, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan deepened American penetration of Iran's security sphere and crystallized a rivalry between the two for pre-eminence in the Persian Gulf, with roots dating to the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The shah aptly recognized that Iran's rise as a regional power necessitated greater control over its expanding security sphere. The presence of British troops in the Persian Gulf hindered the Iranian monarch's ambitions. When the British withdrew in 1971, the shah intensified his efforts to convince Washington that the security of the region should be left to regional powers who shared an interest in upholding stability. This approach, the shah argued, would leave the regional powers more content with U.S. global leadership while creating a more sustainable foundation for regional security.

With the U.S. preoccupied in Vietnam, Washington had no choice but to accept the shah's offer. Once the Persian Gulf was under his domination, the shah's primary objective was to sustain Pax Iranica by preventing the great powers from finding a pretext to re-enter the waters.

The reinvention of Iran as an Islamic state did not change Iranian interests in the Gulf. Tehran viewed the first Persian Gulf war as a means for the U.S. to re-establish itself in the region. Throughout the 1990s, Iran repeatedly called for a U.S. withdrawal, repeating the argument put forward by the shah, that the security of the region should be guaranteed by regional powers and not by foreign troops.

Through the 2003 Iraq invasion, Washington invited itself further into the heart of the region with the aim of setting up permanent military bases in Iraq. In Germany, Japan and South Korea, U.S. bases served to balance a threat or a potential challenge to America's hegemony - from the Soviet Union, China and North Korea respectively. In the Middle East, 'the bases will serve to balance the local challenger to American dominion - Iran - and to ensure [America's] domination of key strategic resources' in the Persian Gulf, in the words of Tom Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute. The Iraq invasion would, as members of the Project for the New American Century wrote in the late 1990s, "project sufficient power to enforce Pax Americana." Tehran's ambitions to revive Pax Iranica had to be deferred to the future.

The invasion was seen as necessary since instability in the Arab sheikhdoms had made the continuation of American military bases there uncertain and insufficient; the 27,000 U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf were dwarfed by those in Germany (100,000), South Korea (37,000) and Japan (47,000). Due to political tensions with Riyadh, bases in Saudi Arabia were abandoned in 2003. Furthermore, military bases in Kuwait and Qatar could not substitute for the kind of strategic depth and flexibility offered by bases identified by the Pentagon in Iraq. These included the Baghdad international airport; the Talil airbase near Nasiriyya; a base in the desert near Syria; and Bashur airfield in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Washington and Tehran's inability to come to terms with each other made the U.S. feel that its only option was to assume domination over the "key strategic resources" of the Persian Gulf itself, an imperative that became increasingly important as America sought to temper the unipolar world's inevitable transition toward multipolarity. Since the American challenge of the 21st century is to prevent China from assuming the role of a global power, Washington's domination over the strategic resources of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea is critical in pacing China's growth and restricting Beijing's power to regional dimensions.

However, this is where America's failure may lie in its own success. There is little evidence that a democratic Iraq would agree with the Pentagon's plans. Roughly 80 percent of Iraqis oppose a permanent U.S. military presence in their country, according to polls conducted by the Coalition Provisional Authority in June 2004. Moreover, unlike Japan, South Korea and Germany, a democratic Iraq may not feel the need for U.S. military protection since threats to Iraq's security that could justify a permanent American military presence are not prominent. Just as Iraq's neighbors fear Iraq's disintegration more than they fear Iraq itself, few regional states can threaten Iraq to the extent that Baghdad would need to turn to Washington for protection.

As the January 2005 elections already have indicated, a democratic Iraq's interests are unlikely to match Washington's goals in the region, leaving no basis for alliance. Rather, U.S. military bases in Iraq may constitute a point of contention between Iraq and its neighbors, particularly Iran, with dangerous consequences for Baghdad.

As a result, failure in Iraq from the American perspective may not lie only in the continuation of the insurgency or Iraq's disintegration, but also in an unexpectedly successful democracy where public rejection of a permanent U.S. military presence is translated into actual policy.

Contrary to the expectations of Bush administration neoconservatives, democracy in Iraq may enable Tehran to outmaneuver Washington without firing a single shot. Though Pax Iranica isn't likely to be resurrected any time soon, and though Pax America has yet to take its last breath, the success of Iraq's democracy may undo America's plan to checkmate its Iranian rival.

Trita Parsi, a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University SAIS in Washington, is writing his dissertation on Israeli-Iranian relations.

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In a warped reality

In a warped reality

Two years on, the occupiers justify the war by embracing the irrelevant and ignoring the inconvenient

Gary Younge
Monday March 21, 2005
The Guardian

This is a tale of one war, two anniversaries, three different demonstrations - and inconsistencies, contradictions and civilian deaths that are too numerous to count.

On April 18 2003, tens of thousands of Sunni and Shia protesters took to the streets of Baghdad to call for the Americans to leave Iraq. "You are the masters today," Ahmed al-Kubeisy, the prayer leader, told the Americans as he addressed the men emerging from Friday prayers. "But I warn you against thinking of staying. Get out before we kick you out."

Article continues
Two years later, the US is still there. The anti-American protest was hailed in the White House as a vindication for the US strategy of bombing and then occupying the country. "In Iraq, there's discussion, debate, protest - all the hallmarks of liberty," said President George Bush that week. "The path to freedom may not always be neat and orderly, but it is the right of every person and every nation."

On February 22 2005, tens of thousands of Lebanese protesters took to the streets of Beirut to call for the Syrians to leave the country. Within a week the Syrians announced indefinite plans to leave. Front covers of magazines carried pictures of pretty young Lebanese women waving flags (at last, some Arabs editors could fancy) proclaiming a "cedar revolution" and "people power". The protest was hailed in the White House as a vindication for the US strategy of bombing and occupying Iraq. "By now it should be clear that authoritarian rule is not the wave of the future," said Bush. "We want that democracy in Lebanon to succeed, and we know it cannot succeed so long as she is occupied by a foreign power."

On March 8 2005, 500,000 pro-Syrian protesters took to the streets of Beirut to oppose US and European interference. The demonstration was backed by Hizbullah, which the US has branded a terrorist organisation. People carried banners saying "Death to America". It was several times bigger than the first anti-Syrian protest. They too waved Lebanese flags. But editors didn't find them pretty. They did not appear on the front pages of the news magazines. Their protest was not hailed in the White House. In fact, its existence was barely acknowledged.

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side," George Orwell once wrote. "He has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

So it is on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, where the occupying powers are still so desperate to create a moral framework to justify the war that embracing the irrelevant and ignoring the inconvenient has become the only viable strategy left to them.

We have entered a world where reality - like the photographs of torture or the absence of weapons of mass destruction - is just a minor blockage in a flood of official, upbeat declarations and statements. Each new dispatch from the departments of irony on both sides of the Atlantic suggests that truth can be created by assertion, principle can be established by deception and democracy can be imposed through aggression. These people would claim credit for the good weather and deny responsibility for their own signature if they thought they could get away with it.

Two years on, the death toll keeps rising, the size of the "coalition" keeps shrinking and global public support for this reckless occupation has maintained its downward spiral from a low base. Indeed, the only thing that changes is the rationale for starting the war, where the sophistry of the occupying powers keeps plumbing new depths and selective amnesia has attained new highs.

We are supposed to believe that there is no link between the American shooting of an Italian intelligence agent on a rescue mission and Rome's decision to withdraw its troops 10 days later. "I don't see a connection there," says the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan. We are supposed to remember Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds 17 years ago in graphic detail and forget everything that happened in Abu Ghraib 16 months ago.

"If our guys want to poke somebody in the chest to get the name of a bomb maker so they can save the lives of Americans, I'm for it," said Republican senator Jim Talent at a recent hearing on torture. How about ramming someone who does not have the name of a bomb maker in the anus with a truncheon, Mr Talent. Are you for that too?

Most recently, we have been told to believe that the limited and as yet untested moves towards democracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the thawing in Palestinian-Israeli relations (largely the result of Yasser Arafat's death) and the proposed withdrawal of Syrian troops (prompted by an outcry over the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri) all justify the bombing.

As further proof they point to January's elections in Iraq. This was a vote that the Americans wanted to postpone, in which many people could not participate, that produced a victory for Islamists with close ties to Iran who want the US troops out as soon as possible. If all of this amounts to victory, I would hate to see what their idea of defeat looks like.

The truth is that you cannot even begin to make a justification for the war unless you take into account the lives of innocent Iraqis lost as a result of it. The simplest way to deal with that is to pretend that these deaths do not exist - the occupying powers simply do not count them. The only other defence is that their deaths are a price worth paying and that good things can come from bad acts - a claim every bit as offensive and wrong-headed as arguing that 9/11 was a price worth paying for waking America up to the consequences of its foreign policy.

But the Iraqis are not the only ones to have suffered these past two years. While the occupiers have been busy failing to export democracy abroad, they have been busy undermining it at home. All of them lied to their electorates about the reasons for going to war. With the exception of America, all of them went to war despite overwhelming opposition from the public. And through their anti-terrorist bills and patriot acts they have removed some of the most basic legal rights of their citizens and criminalised the most vulnerable.

The elections last year in Spain and recent events in Italy are encouraging. They show that while the anti-war movement failed to stop the war, it has maintained a sufficiently effective presence to make a crucial difference at key moments to disable and discredit it.

In the meantime, the department of irony will keep moulding its own version of reality until it is sufficiently warped to fit its own agenda. US troop withdrawal, said Bush last week, "would be done depending upon the ability of Iraqis to defend themselves". They are already defending themselves Mr Bush - from you.

g.younge@guardian.co.uk

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U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export

washingtonpost.com
U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export
North Korea Sent Material To Pakistan, Not to Libya

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity. In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.

The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States.

In an effort to repair the damage, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is traveling through East Asia this weekend trying to get the six-nation talks back on track. The impasse was expected to dominate talks today in Seoul and then Beijing, which wields the greatest influence with North Korea.

The new details follow a string of controversies concerning the Bush administration's use of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the White House offered a public case against Iraq that concealed dissent on nearly every element of intelligence and included interpretations unsupported by the evidence.

A presidential commission studying U.S. intelligence is reviewing the case, as well as judgments on Iran and North Korea. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also is reviewing evidence on nuclear, chemical and biological programs suspected in Iran and North Korea.

The United States briefed allies on North Korea in late January and early February. Shortly afterward, administration officials, speaking to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, said North Korea had sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya. The officials said the briefing was arranged to share the information with China, South Korea and Japan ahead of a new round of hoped-for negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program.

But in recent days, two other U.S. officials said the briefings were hastily arranged after China and South Korea indicated they were considering bolting from six-party talks on North Korea. The talks have been seen as largely ineffectual, but the Bush administration, which refuses to meet bilaterally with Pyongyang, insists they are critical to curbing North Korea's nuclear program.

The White House declined to offer an official to comment by name about the new details concerning Pakistan. A prepared response attributed to a senior administration official said that the U.S. government "has provided allies with an accurate account of North Korea's nuclear proliferation activities."

Although the briefings did not mention Pakistan by name, the official said they made it clear that the sale went through the illicit network operated by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdel Qadeer Khan. But the briefings gave no indication that U.S. intelligence believes that the material had been bought by Pakistan and transferred there from North Korea in a container owned by the Pakistani government.

They also gave no indication that the uranium was then shipped via a Pakistani company to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and on to Libya. Those findings match assessments by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating Libya separately. Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program in December 2003.

Since Pakistan became a key U.S. ally in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, the administration has not held President Pervez Musharraf accountable for actions taken by Khan while he was a member of Musharraf's cabinet and in charge of nuclear cooperation for the government.

"The administration is giving Pakistan a free ride when they don't deserve it and hurting U.S. interests at the same time," said Charles L. Pritchard, who was the Bush administration's special envoy for the North Korea talks until August 2003.

"As our allies get the full picture, it doesn't help our credibility with them," he said.

Pritchard, now a Brookings Institution fellow, and others had initially raised questions about the Libya connection when it became public last month. No one in the administration has been willing to discuss the uranium sale publicly.

In testimony to Congress last month, CIA Director Porter J. Goss spoke extensively about North Korea's nuclear arsenal and capabilities. But he gave no indication the intelligence community believed that North Korea had supplied nuclear materials to Libya, that it was capable of producing uranium hexafluoride or that it was a member of the nuclear black market.

Two years ago, U.S. officials told allies that North Korea was trying to assemble an enrichment facility that would turn uranium hexafluoride into bomb-grade material.

But China and South Korea, in particular, have been skeptical of those assertions and are becoming increasingly wary of pressuring North Korea.

The National Security Council briefings in late January and early February, by senior NSC officials Michael J. Green and William Tobey, were intended to do just that by keeping the spotlight solely on North Korea.

Pakistan was mentioned only once in the briefing paper, and in a context that emphasized Pyongyang's guilt. "Pakistani press reports have said the uranium came from North Korea," according to the briefing paper, which was read to The Post.

After initial press reports about the briefing appeared last month, Pyongyang announced that it possessed nuclear weapons and would not return to the six-party talks.

Pritchard said North Korea's reaction was "absolutely linked" to the Green-Tobey trip.

The United States tried to persuade North Korea to return to the talks, but without success. The North Korean leadership responded with a list of conditions, including a demand that Rice apologize for calling it an "outpost of tyranny."

During the first stop on her Asian tour, Rice used noticeably softer language on North Korea, telling a Tokyo audience that the U.S. offer was open to negotiation, and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il should grab the opportunity.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report from Seoul.

originally published Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page A01

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Does Congress seek due process or political gain?

USA TODAY

Does Congress seek due process or political gain?
By Laura Parker, Kevin Johnson and Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — The attempt by Congress — and potentially, President Bush — to step into the middle of the dispute over the fate of Terri Schiavo is an extraordinary legal and political maneuver that touches an emotional issue families across the USA privately face every day: when to let go of a loved one.

But when it comes to the Terri Schiavo case, privacy no longer is much of an issue.

The legal wrangling between her husband and her parents over whether to remove Schiavo's feeding tube and allow the brain-damaged woman to die has been a bitter public battle for years. It's pitted Michael Schiavo, who wants the feeding tube removed, against his in-laws, religious groups such as the Christian Defense Coalition and conservative lawmakers.

Sunday, the question was whether a bill in Congress could reverse a series of state court decisions won by Michael Schiavo — and lead to the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, which was removed Friday under an order by a state court.

Legally speaking, it's a long shot — and may only delay Michael's wishes from being carried out. But the activity in Congress reflects how the Schiavo case has become an emotional cause for anti-abortion conservatives who regard it as part of a broader effort to sustain life.

The bill is written specifically to grant Terri Schiavo's parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, the standing to have a federal court review state court actions in the case.

But the only question for a federal court probably would be whether Terri Schiavo has been deprived of her constitutional right to due process, says Charles Fried, a law professor at Harvard University who was solicitor general during the Reagan administration.

"The bill itself does not create any new substantive rights," Fried says. "What they gain is delay and publicity, and a terrible, disgraceful interference in what is a personal tragedy."

But U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., compared the issue Sunday to state death-penalty cases that typically are reviewed by federal courts: "This is not a political issue. This is an issue about saving a life."

The effort by Michael Schiavo to allow his wife to die has been reviewed by 19 judges in six courts in the 15 years since Terri Schiavo had a heart attack that cut off oxygen to her brain. The first trial, in 2000, was followed by an extensive rehearing of the case after the original decision, in favor of Michael Schiavo, was appealed. The U.S. Supreme Court twice denied appeals without comment.

And that was before the U.S. House Government Reform Committee issued subpoenas Friday for Terri and Michael Schiavo and her doctors to testify at her hospice during a hearing here this week.

When Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George Greer denied a motion by committee lawyers to intervene in the case so that Terri Schiavo could "comply with the subpoenas," the committee appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Late Friday, the high court also turned that down, marking the third time the high court has declined to step into the case.

The degree to which Congress is trying to involve itself surprised and dismayed Fried and other legal analysts.

"There's been plenty of due process," Fried said. "The Supreme Court has indicated its unwillingness to get involved."

George Annas, chairman of the Health Law Department at Boston University, said "the law only works if people operate in good faith and accept what the courts decide. If they don't accept it and take it to the streets, the legal system doesn't work. ... That's what happened here."

Michael Schiavo criticized congressional leaders Sunday for intruding in the fight. "I'm outraged, and I think that every American in this country should also be outraged that this government is trampling all over a personal family matter that has been adjudicated in the courts for seven years," he told CNN. "Congress has more important things to discuss."

But Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., cast the bill as a check to make sure one of America's "most vulnerable citizens" was being protected.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Republicans were racing the clock to aid Terri Schiavo, who was on her third day without nutrition or fluids. "We're here to help a dying woman," he said.

And in a reflection of how bitter the battle over Terri Schiavo has become, several Republican lawmakers leveled personal attacks at Michael Schiavo. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and Rep. Dave Weldon of Florida essentially cast Michael Schiavo as an abusive husband.

Their sentiments were echoed by Bobby Schindler, Terri's brother, who told CNN on Sunday that the family is "extremely grateful for what Congress is doing.

"Terri is alive," he said. "She's not dying. She's a human being."

David Gibbs, the Schindlers' attorney, praised Congress for its actions and promised to restore fluids to his clients' daughter once it passed and was signed by Bush.

"People ask why should the Congress get themselves involved," he said outside the Hospice House Woodside, where Terri Schiavo is a patient. "Whenever there is a gross injustice, the United States Congress has always stepped forward to do what was right and fair."

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland was among the Democrats who accused Republicans of using the Schiavo bill to please religious conservatives, a key GOP constituency.

"Republicans didn't address this until they saw it would be a huge political issue for them," he said. "There's no question it is political."

Schiavo dispute began in 1993

Terri Schiavo, now 41, has not spoken in 15 years. She breathes on her own, but without the feeding tube that provides nourishment, she would die.

The dispute between Schiavo's husband and her parents began in 1993, when the Schindlers, unhappy over Michael's care for her, unsuccessfully sought a court order to remove him as her guardian.

Then, in 1998, Michael Schiavo went to a state court to seek permission to remove the feeding tube. The court concluded, based on trial testimony of doctors who had examined Terri Schiavo, that she was in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovering cognitive abilities.

The Schindlers disagree. They say she is sometimes responsive to them, and that they do not want her to be allowed to die. They say she can recover. They appealed court rulings several times, sometimes using new language to recast failed motions.

The Schindlers already have tried unsuccessfully to persuade Florida courts that their daughter was denied due process.

"The truth is, her interests were well represented by the lawyers for the Schindler family ... and by her husband, who has never been found to be an inappropriate guardian," says Norman Cantor, a law professor at Rutgers University who has followed the case. "The notion that she wasn't getting due process is ludicrous. She's gotten more due process than any patient in medical history."

A 4-year-old videotape plays a central role in the case. The video, shot by her family, runs about four hours. Parts of the tape, showing Terri seemingly responding to her mother's voice, or Terri's eyes following shiny balloons as they pass before her face, have been shown on television and on Web sites.

But after reviewing the full tape in 2002, Greer — who has been denounced by the Schindlers' supporters and now has police protection — ruled that Schiavo had no cognitive function.

Many lawmakers who concluded that Congress must act made their decisions after watching the video. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a physician, says he was convinced by the video that Terri Schiavo's doctors were wrong. He characterized her as a "living person who has a level of consciousness" but who cannot feed herself. He did not examine her.

In recent weeks, Christian conservatives and anti-abortion groups, such as the National Right to Life Committee, have pushed lawmakers in Tallahassee and Washington to act in the Schiavo case, and have paid the Schindlers' legal fees.

The sense of urgency became greater once the tube was removed on Friday. "Hours do matter at this point," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Bush flew back to Washington.

Vigils continue outside hospice

Here in Pinellas Park, activists with the Christian Defense Coalition, the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and other religious and conservative groups are holding a vigil outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is a patient.

Sunday, the talk about Terri Schiavo was laced with discussions of raw politics. Many of the nearly 100 demonstrators said they were dedicated to saving Schiavo, and to changing the political landscape in Florida and Washington.

"People are very serious about this. When the next election comes up, there are going to be some politicians and judges without jobs," said Joanna Scaglione, 63, of Tampa. "That might be too late for Terri. I hope not."

From her wheelchair, Kathy Musick, 53, was manning a booth aimed at recalling Judge Greer. "A lawlessness has been developing in Florida that we have to stop," she said. "We can do it here and we can do it with our vote."

Paul Remis, 83, a retired electrical engineer in Tampa, cried as he discussed Schiavo's case. Remis said there was no one else to turn to "except the politicians who might be able to help us.

"We used to base everything on a respect for life," he said. "The way the world is going now, I don't know where we end up."

Contributing: Parker reported from McLean, Va.; Johnson from Pinellas Park, and Kiely from Washington.

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CONSERVATISM COME UNDONE

andrewsullivan.com
CONSERVATISM COME UNDONE: So it is now the federal government's role to micro-manage baseball and to prevent a single Florida woman who is trapped in a living hell from dying with dignity. We're getting to the point when conservatism has become a political philosophy that believes that government - at the most distant level - has the right to intervene in almost anything to achieve the right solution. Today's conservatism is becoming yesterday's liberalism.

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How the Private Became Political

latimes.com
How the Private Became Political
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas — Frenetic negotiations among congressional leaders, a special weekend session and a hastily arranged trip back to Washington by the president in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case elevated a tragic personal issue into an extraordinary political drama.

But at bottom, the flurry of activity reflected an everyday fact of political life: When a powerful constituency cares passionately about something, all politicians — whether Republicans or Democrats — yearn to respond.

In this instance, the constituency was evangelical Christian conservatives. They played a pivotal role in reelecting President Bush and swelling GOP majorities in both houses of Congress in November, and they have become a voting bloc as essential to the GOP's new dominance as labor unions and minorities once were to the Democratic Party.

And the pressure on Bush and Republican congressional leaders to respond in the Schiavo case was all the greater because, during the first three months of the president's second term, social conservatives had become increasingly unhappy with what they saw as neglect of their concerns, such as banning same-sex marriage, in favor of issues pushed by corporations: changing bankruptcy laws, curbing medical malpractice awards and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

"Our issues aren't on the front burner every day, but when they are on the front burner it's on high," said Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition. "This proves that Terri Schiavo was a front-burner issue."

The very fact that the case of one woman in Florida and the family quarrel over her fate have reached the halls of Congress and captured the attention of the president reflects the power of the evangelical base in setting an agenda, said Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals. The Schiavo case, he said, showed that social conservatives were as consumed with the end of life as they were with life in the womb — and that the politicians were following their lead.

Republicans' desire to respond to the Schiavo case in a highly visible way was underscored Saturday night when the White House unexpectedly announced that Bush, vacationing at his ranch near Crawford, Texas, would fly back to Washington to sign the emergency legislation aiding Schiavo's parents in their effort to keep her alive.

Schiavo — who has had severe neurological damage since 1990 when a chemical imbalance stopped her heart and cut the oxygen supply to her brain — has been at the center of a legal battle between her husband and her parents.

Her husband says Schiavo had told him that she would not wish to be kept alive under dire circumstances.

The case, first taken up by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and anti-abortion activists who viewed it as an issue aligned with their beliefs, has become a cause for evangelical conservatives nationwide because they see assisted suicide and related procedures as moral and religious issues of overriding importance.

Their commitment to the cause has been intensified by rising anger toward Schiavo's husband and toward the Florida courts that sided with his position.

On Friday, the pressure on congressional Republicans escalated sharply when a state judge ordered the feeding tube removed and a federal judge ruled that Schiavo's parents had no legal standing in the federal court system.

The legislation that is expected to win emergency approval over the weekend would give the parents standing in federal court, though it would not compel a federal judge to take up the case.

As a backdrop to the dramatic weekend deliberations were the political implications for several key players who could not afford to ignore the desires of the party base.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is considered a candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 2008. Frist, a physician, pushed his support for action to the point of declaring — on the basis of television footage — that he thought Schiavo might recover.

Gov. Bush, who has said he would not run for president in 2008, is still considered a potential contender and has won accolades from evangelical leaders for his role in the case. He discussed the matter with his brother on Friday, and the president's decision to move aggressively could further solidify the governor's position with the party's religious base.

For House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the case offered an opportunity to placate a key constituency and divert attention from his continuing ethics problems. DeLay had been avoiding attention much of last week but moved to the forefront of televised appearances Friday and Saturday.

He heralded the negotiations that led to a bipartisan agreement to let the special legislation come before the House and Senate on an emergency basis. And he took the opportunity to personally take on Schiavo's husband.

But the overriding reason for the flurry of activity — activity that could have little practical effect unless the federal courts agree to intervene — was the now-established importance of the voters who were demanding action.

Schiavo's case first entered the political arena in 2003, when Gov. Bush, besieged by petitions and e-mails from antiabortion activists, helped push through a state law to prevent doctors from removing Schiavo's feeding tube. The law was overturned.

When other legal options seemed to run out — and the Friday deadline for removing the feeding tube approached — the governor contacted the state's new Republican senator, Mel Martinez, to push the matter with Congress.

Social conservatives began lobbying the issue in Washington, but some exploded in anger late Friday when the House and Senate failed to reach an immediate agreement and seemed prepared to let the matter drop rather than disrupt their plans for the fast-approaching Easter recess. The message, as some conservatives saw it, was that GOP leaders were more interested in their personal political goals than the moral imperative of saving Schiavo's life.

"There are a lot of folks who helped create Republican majorities that were pretty disgusted with what went down, and the inescapable reality was that while they were dithering the tube got pulled," said Kenneth L. Connor, former president of the conservative Family Research Council and the lawyer who represented Gov. Bush in his efforts to keep Schiavo alive.

"That could have been avoided. The people who created this majority are interested in product, not process."

The maneuvering was followed over the weekend by President Bush in Texas.

The president considered addressing the case for the first time on Friday, when, by coincidence, he visited Florida at the same time doctors were removing the feeding tube, said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who spoke briefly about the case with the president aboard Air Force One.

"The answer was not to do it, since the situation was so fluid with the House and the Senate and the legal proceedings," Feeney said.

Feeney, who backs the measure, said the matter carries some political risk for Republicans but that televised images in the coming days of a dehydrated and starving Schiavo might spark "an epiphany for a lot of Americans who are undecided or not paying attention to these issues."

Evangelical leader Cizik predicted that the Schiavo case would be among the first of many to present similar issues.

originally published March 20, 2005

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Bush puts himself in the center of Terri Schiavo controversy

Bush puts himself in the center of Terri Schiavo controversy
Mar 21, 2005
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON President Bush's dash back to the White House to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case put him squarely in the center of a wrenching drama with political, medical and legal overtones.

Schiavo's case has become a rallying cry for religious conservatives, the powerful base of Bush's successful re-election bid.

While Bush isn't facing voters again, fellow Republicans in Congress will - and the involvement of the president and GOP lawmakers in Schiavo's case could help cement the religious right's enthusiastic backing in the 2006 midterm elections.

"Every opportunity to stroke the conservative base (Bush) has been taking," said Allan J. Lichtman, a political historian at American University. "And he knows that the conservative base is going to have to be very strong in the midterm elections if he wants to maintain his margins."

There also could be a familial consideration for the president. Brother Jeb Bush, the Florida governor who has made the Schiavo case an almost personal fight for years, has said he won't run for the White House in 2008. But what if he changes his mind, as many suspect he will? The president's high-profile support for his brother now could pay off later.

Bush raced back from his Texas ranch to be on hand to sign legislation giving a federal district court jurisdiction in the struggle over whether to prolong the life the brain-damaged Schiavo. A feeding tube keeping her alive was removed Friday.

Bush put his name to the measure early Monday, saying in a statement issued by the White House that in matters like the Schiavo case America's society, laws and courts "should have a presumption in favor of life."

Switching the case to a federal court contradicts Bush's oft-stated support for states' rights over federal control.

There is also criticism that even with narrowly tailored legislation, a dangerous precedent is being set on an issue that thousands of families struggle with around the country. "There ought to be a concern," said Alan Wolfe, professor and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "If this one goes through, then why not the next case and so on?"

Lichtman said the case, with all its complexities, is a tough one for politicians to gauge.

"This is one of those emotional issues that can boomerang on you, as well as benefit you," he said. "A lot of conflicting values are at state. A lot of the same conservatives who are so strongly in support of this bill, on the other hand, support family autonomy, the right of families to make decisions free of the interference of government."

But Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor who has supported Jeb Bush, said the case is becoming more of a clear winner for Republicans.

"I think initially people though it was all about politics," she said. "But as the situation came to a head, people began to think it was a little broader than the political strategy of it - it was more about clarifying what is a very murky area of the law."

The White House vehemently denied that politics had anything to do with Bush's return to sign a bill that wasn't guaranteed to pass and in any case could be flown to him for his signature.

Spokesman Scott McClellan said the trip was solely about saving a life. The last thing the president wanted was to have Schiavo die in the gap between congressional passage of a bill and the hours it took to transport a bill to him and back to Washington.

"Hours do matter at this point," McClellan said, despite predictions by medical experts that it could take two weeks for Schiavo to die.

Bush aides also dismissed criticism that the extraordinary federal action on behalf of a single person represented overreaching by Washington, saying the contentious case presented difficulties that are rarely matched.

Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say she could get better after 15 years in a persistent vegetative state. For years, they have battled Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, who thinks she should be permitted to die, as he insists she would have wanted.

"Most people recognize that this case involves some extraordinary circumstances," McClellan said.

He said there would be no public news coverage of any bill signing and that Bush would resume his previous plans Monday for a two-day, three-state Western swing to pitch his Social Security plans.

"The president doesn't want to throw himself into the spotlight," the spokesman said.

Even without cameras trained on Bush's pen, the case is politically charged.

"This is all about politics and nothing else," American University's Lichtman said. "Frankly, there is no other reason for him to come back other than to maximize the public impact of this political issue."

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Jennifer Loven reports on the White House for The Associated Press. AP writer Deb Riechmann contributed from Crawford, Texas.

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Democrats slam budget cuts for veterans' services

CNN.com

Democrats slam budget cuts for veterans' services
Pa. governor: Bush budget cuts for critical programs 'unconscionable'

(CNN) -- The governor of Pennsylvania on Saturday said the federal government must do a better job helping America's war veterans and criticized proposed budget cuts affecting them.

"During this time of war, it is absolutely the wrong time for our federal government to step back from any of its commitments to our veterans. To do so would be penny wise but pound foolish," said Gov. Ed Rendell in the weekly Democratic radio address.

"In today's parlance, the cost of health care for these vets may be half a billion dollars but their sacrifice for our nation, priceless," he said.

His remarks followed the weekly radio address of President Bush, who defended the Iraqi invasion and operation and marked its second anniversary. Rendell said that Pennsylvania and other states have programs helping veterans and their families.

"While we the governors do all we can for our vets and our returning soldiers, our federal government still has the primary responsibility for meeting the needs of our veterans. And that's why I find the president's budget cuts for critical veteran services to be unconscionable."

He maintained that budget cuts include "a $350 million reduction in veterans home funding, which wipes out at least 5,000 veterans' nursing home beds."

"If the president's proposed budget cuts are enacted, nearly 60 percent of the 1,600 veterans will lose their daily stipend that allows them to stay in our state's nursing homes, literally forcing them out into the cold."

Vet co-payments for prescription drugs were tripled two years ago, Rendell said, and "now the president is proposing to again double those increased co-pays."

"In the midst of a war, when many new men and women will join the legion of veterans, does it really make sense for the president to increase the cost of vets' prescriptions by 100 percent?"

Rendell criticized a proposal calling for a $250 fee "to be paid by every vet wishing to participate in the Veterans Administration health care program. "

"There may well be some veterans who can afford to do so, but can all vets come up with an extra $250 a year to pay for health care? I doubt it."

He urged "every patriotic American" to contact their legislators and protest budget cuts for veteran services.

Also, Rendell praised the thousands of returning troops who "put their lives on the line" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Unlike any war in recent history, citizen-soldiers are fighting this war. Forty percent of all the troops are from National Guard units or reservists,"

Rendell said more than 69 Pennsylvanians have died in the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts and "since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 14,000 Pennsylvania National Guard members have left the comfort of their home to risk their lives for our security."

"The families of the brave service men and women from all 50 states now know for sure that their loved ones did not die in vain. This war has reminded us of the solemn pledge our nation makes to our veterans."

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Congress, President intercede in family affair

1:30am March 21, 2005

President Bush has signed into law a bill passed by Congress to enable a federal court to review whether Terri Schiavo should be kept alive via a feeding tube. State courts have so far ruled in favor of Schiavo's husband, Michael, who says his wife would not want to continue living in her state, and against her parents, who want to keep her alive. Michael Schiavo has moved to have the law declared unconstitutional.

Acording to reports, investigations show that at family funerals and in discussions about others who were in a state requiring some form of life support, Terri Schiavo expressed her desire to friends and relatives not to be connected to any form of life support. So no matter what politicians think, this matter has been addressed in the courts, and that is where it belongs. By interceding in this matter, Congress and the President have set a precedent that will cause millions of other families in similar situations, where there is no written statement of wishes in proper legal format, to have differing opinions on how to proceed, and can now request the United States Congress and the President of the United States to get involved. Having now set precedent, it will be difficult for Congress and the President to refuse, as, sadly, the Schiavo family is not the only family to have such issues.

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Protests Mark Second Anniversary Of Iraq War

ny1.com
Protests Mark Second Anniversary Of Iraq War
MARCH 20TH, 2005

Protests around the city Saturday marked the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

Anti-war demonstrators started out in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem Saturday morning, before marching down to Central Park for a rally.

Local politicians addressed the crowd from a stage set up in Central Park's East Meadow, telling supporters that it's time for the president to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.

"It's one thing to go to war; it's another thing to mislead the American people," Representative Charles Rangel told the crowd.

"If those who made the decision to go to war had been in combat, if they thought their kids were going, or their grandkids were going, there would never have been a war in Iraq," said Rangel, a Korean War veteran.

"We don't want to spend any more money for war," said Brooklyn city councilmember Charles Barron. "We need money for jobs; we need money for housing; we need money for our youth; we need money to pave our streets; we need money to educate our children; and we need to build a new world a world without Bush."

Demonstrators wrapped up the day by marching to Mayor Bloomberg's Upper East Side townhouse for a final protest of the day.

Another anti-war protest was held in Brooklyn, and more than two dozen people were arrested for protesting the war in Times Square.

The group had marched to Times Square from 47th Street and First Avenue carrying flag-draped coffins. Once there they lay down next to the coffins in front of the armed forces recruitment center on Broadway.

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Censure

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The Search for Oil Independence

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Amtrak

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The Loyal Opposition

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Putting NeoCons Everywhere

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Fake News

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Need a fix

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Enron: Patron Saint of Bush's Fake News

The New York Times
March 20, 2005
FRANK RICH
Enron: Patron Saint of Bush's Fake News

JUST when Americans are being told it's safe to hand over their savings to Wall Street again, he's baaaack! Looking not unlike Chucky, the demented doll of perennial B-horror-movie renown, Ken Lay has crawled out of Houston's shadows for a media curtain call.

His trial is still months away, but there he was last Sunday on "60 Minutes," saying he knew nothin' 'bout nothin' that went down at Enron. This week he is heading toward the best-seller list, as an involuntary star of "Conspiracy of Fools," the New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald's epic account of the multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme anointed America's "most innovative company" (six years in a row by Fortune magazine). Coming soon, the feature film: Alex Gibney's "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," a documentary seen at Sundance, goes into national release next month. As long as you're not among those whose 401(k)'s and pensions were wiped out, it's morbidly entertaining. In one surreal high point, Mr. Lay likens investigations of Enron to terrorist attacks on America. For farce, there's the sight of a beaming Alan Greenspan as he accepts the "Enron Award for Distinguished Public Service" only days after Enron has confessed to filing five years of bogus financial reports. Then again, given the implicit quid pro quo in this smarmy tableau, maybe that's the Enron drama's answer to a sex scene.

The Bush administration, eager to sell the country on "personal" Social Security accounts, cannot be all that pleased to see Kenny Boy again. He's the poster boy for how big guys can rip off suckers in the stock market. He also dredges up some inconvenient pre-9/11 memories of Bush family business. Enron was the biggest Bush-Cheney campaign contributor in the 2000 election. Kenny Boy and his lovely wife Linda flew the first President Bush and Barbara Bush to the ensuing Inauguration on the Enron jet. Even as Enron was presiding over rolling blackouts in California, Dick Cheney or his aides had at least six meetings with the company's executives to carve up government energy policy in 2001. Even now what exactly transpired at those meetings remains a secret.

But never mind. The president himself gave his word when the Enron scandal broke that Kenny Boy was really more of a supporter of Ann Richards anyway. Feeling our pain, Mr. Bush told us of his own personal tragedy: his mother-in-law lost $8,000 she had invested in Enron. Soon stuff was happening in Iraq, and the case was closed, or at least forgotten.

Yet the larger shadows linger. Revisiting the Enron story as it re-emerges in 2005 is to be reminded of just how much the Enron culture has continued to shape the Bush administration long after the company itself imploded and the Lays were eighty-sixed from the White House Christmas card list.

The enduring legacy of Enron can be summed up in one word: propaganda. Here was a corporate house of cards whose business few could explain and whose source of profits was an utter mystery - and yet it thrived, unquestioned, for years. How? As the narrator says in "The Smartest Guys in the Room," Enron "was fixated on its public relations campaigns." It churned out slick PR videos as if it were a Hollywood studio. It browbeat the press (until a young Fortune reporter, Bethany McLean, asked one question too many). In a typical ruse in 1998, a gaggle of employees was rushed onto an empty trading floor at the company's Houston headquarters to put on a fictional show of busy trading for visiting Wall Street analysts being escorted by Mr. Lay. "We brought some of our personal stuff, like pictures, to make it look like the area was lived in," a laid-off Enron employee told The Wall Street Journal in 2002. "We had to make believe we were on the phone buying and selling" even though "some of the computers didn't even work."

If this Potemkin village sounds familiar, take a look at the ongoing 60-stop "presidential roadshow" in which Mr. Bush has "conversations on Social Security" with "ordinary citizens" for the consumption of local and national newscasts. As in the president's "town meeting" campaign appearances last year, the audiences are stacked with prescreened fans; any dissenters who somehow get in are quickly hustled away by security goons. But as The Washington Post reported last weekend, the preparations are even more elaborate than the finished product suggests; the seeming reality of the event is tweaked as elaborately as that of a television reality show. Not only are the panelists for these conversations recruited from administration supporters, but they are rehearsed the night before, with a White House official playing Mr. Bush. One participant told The Post, "We ran through it five times before the president got there." Finalists who vary just slightly from the administration's pitch are banished from the cast at the last minute, "American Idol"-style.

Like Enron's stockholders, American taxpayers pay for the production of such propaganda, even if its message, like that of the Enron show put on for visiting analysts, misrepresents and distorts the bottom line of the scheme that is being sold. We paid for last year's phony television news reports in which the faux reporter Karen Ryan "interviewed" administration officials who gave partially deceptive information hyping the Medicare prescription-drug program. We paid Armstrong Williams his $240,000 for delivering faux-journalistic analysis of the No Child Left Behind act.

The administration cycled the Ryan and Williams paychecks through the PR giant Ketchum Communications. Ketchum was also one of the companies hired to flack for Andersen, the now-defunct Enron accounting firm that shredded a ton of documents. We don't know what, if any, role Ketchum is playing in the White House's Social Security propaganda push, though we do know the company has received at least $97 million from the government, according to a Congressional report.

That $97 million may yet prove a mere down payment. The Times reported last weekend that the administration told executive-branch agencies simply to ignore a stern directive by the Congressional Government Accountability Office discouraging the use of "covert propaganda" like the Karen Ryan "news reports." In other words, the brakes are off, and before long, the government could have a larger budget for fake news than actual television news divisions have for real news. At last weekend's Gridiron dinner, Mr. Bush made a joke about how "most" of his good press on Social Security came from Armstrong Williams, and the Washington press corps yukked it up. The joke, however, is on them - and us.

USA Today reported this month that the Department of Homeland Security, having failed miserably to secure American ports and air transportation from potential Al Qaeda attacks, has nonetheless shelled out $100,000-plus to hire "a Hollywood liaison": Bobbie Faye Ferguson, an actress whose credits include the movie "The Bermuda Triangle" and guest shots on television schlock like "Designing Women" and "The Dukes of Hazzard." She will "work with moviemakers and scriptwriters" to give us homeland security infotainment - which is to actual homeland security what the movie "Independence Day" is to an actual terrorist attack.

Another propagandist with a rising profile is Susan Molinari, the onetime CBS News personality who appears regularly on news shows like "Hardball" and "Capitol Report." As she bloviates from the right about Social Security or the fake newsman Jeff Gannon, she is invariably described as "a former Republican Congresswoman" or a "CNBC political analyst." But her actual current jobs remain mysteriously unmentioned: C.E.O. of the Washington Group, Ketchum's lobbying firm, and president of Ketchum Public Affairs. Were the Ketchum link disclosed, perhaps some real NBC reporter might find the nerve to ask her what other Karen Ryans and Armstrong Williamses might be on the Ketchum payroll. Or not.

The Bush propagandists have been successful at many tasks, from fomenting the canard that Iraqis attacked on 9/11 to deflecting moral outrage from Abu Ghraib and toward indecency as defined by its Federal Communications Commission. But Social Security may be a bridge too far even for propaganda machinery of this heft. Polls find that an ever-increasing majority of the country rejects the idea of letting Wall Street get its hands on its retirement savings.

Americans do have short memories, but it's the administration's bad luck that not just Kenny Boy but a whole brigade of bubble plutocrats have lately been yanked back into the spotlight by their legal travails: WorldCom's Bernard J. Ebbers, Tyco's L. Dennis Kozlowski, HealthSouth's Richard M. Scrushy, Global Crossing's Gary Winnick. No one is glad to see them. The public knows that the economy has not fully mended, and that there remain different economic rules for insiders than for the panelists drafted for the presidential Social Security roadshow. The new bankruptcy bill embraced this month by Republicans and Democrats alike throws Americans paying usurious credit-card interest to the wolves even as wealthy debtors remain protected.

You can catch the public mood in the reaction to Martha Stewart's homecoming. Despite the news media's heavy-breathing efforts to hype her emergence from jail as the heartwarming comeback of a born-again humanitarian, the bottom line shows that few in the audience are buying it. The Martha Stewart Omnimedia stock price started tumbling the moment she was back on camera, in line with the cratered circulation and ad sales of her magazine. Handing out hot cocoa to reporters at her Bedford, N.Y., estate did not turn the tide, and her spinoff of "The Apprentice" may be arriving just as the country is getting sick of C.E.O.'s again. Coincidentally or not, ratings for the existing "Apprentice" are off in tandem with the filing for bankruptcy protection by Donald Trump's casino empire, the saturation coverage of his lavish nuptials and the introduction of a Trump fragrance.

It's against this backdrop that the returning Mr. Lay - completely unrepentant, still purporting on "60 Minutes" that he's an innocent victim of others - could be the Democrats' new best friend. A Texas tycoon who helped create the political career of George W. Bush only to be discarded when scandal struck has re-emerged at just the precise moment when he might do his old buddy the most harm.

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Washington's Fiscal Meltdown

The New York Times
March 20, 2005

Washington's Fiscal Meltdown

Before leaving town for a two-week spring break, Congress indulged in its own form of March Madness. The Republican majority in the House and the Senate passed budget blueprints for 2006 that slash domestic spending by upwards of $150 billion over the next five years. Yet they still managed to increase the projected deficit by more than $125 billion over the same period (and by more than $1 trillion through 2015). How is it possible to produce that much red ink while slashing spending? Easy. Just cut revenue by giving huge tax cuts to - surprise, surprise - high earners and wealthy investors. The lawmakers will not make any final decisions until they cobble their separate proposals into one official budget later in the year, but the early signs are all bad - pointing to the least sensible tax cuts for the least needy recipients with no thought to the exploding deficit.

Of all the favors they are determined to dispense, tax cutters in both the House and Senate are most intent on extending the special low tax rates for dividends and capital gains, through 2010. The preferential rates are not scheduled to expire until 2008, but lawmakers want to act now, apparently to spare their constituents worry about the future. And who are those fretful constituents? In 2005 alone, almost half of the tax savings from dividend and capital gains rate cuts will go to investors who make more than $1 million a year, the top 0.2 percent of the income ladder. Nearly three-quarters of the tax benefits will go to those making more than $200,000, about the top 3 percent. The cost to everyone else in the form of forgone revenue will be $23 billion.

Also remarkable for their largess are two high-end tax breaks that would increase the amount well-heeled taxpayers would be allowed to write off for dependents and other expenses. They were enacted in 2001, but have been delayed. Now the budget proposals let them take effect. Once again, almost all of the tax savings would go to that lucky 3 percent of filers with incomes above $200,000. The lost revenue would amount to $95 billion over 10 years. In this particular piece of fiscal insanity, even the usual Republican argument - that letting a temporary tax break expire is the same thing as a tax increase - does not apply. These two changes have not even taken effect yet, so who would miss them if they never materialized? If you're President Bush, however, getting these two provisions is the tax policy equivalent of going all the way to Baghdad. The president's father originally allowed the deduction limitations on wealthy filers as part of the 1991 budget, the one that violated Bush père's "no new taxes" pledge and, in so doing, helped to end his chances for re-election.

The wealthy would also be on the receiving end of two new tax-sheltered savings plans favored by President Bush: the retirement savings account and the lifetime savings account. These were not embraced by name by the Congressional budget leaders. But Congress could easily include them in the final budget, since they will not start losing revenue - about $30 billion a year - until much later, when investors cash them in tax-free. The accounts would allow a couple to shelter $20,000 annually, as well as $5,000 for each of their children, on top of however much they may already be investing in other tax-favored plans. None of this will be any help to the vast majority of average Americans, who do not even take full advantage of current I.R.A.'s.

And then there is the 11th-hour tax cut slipped into the Senate proposal. It would repeal an income tax on Social Security benefits that applies to the wealthiest 20 percent or so of beneficiaries and whose revenue is dedicated to the Medicare hospital trust fund. The repeal would accelerate the fund's projected insolvency by four years, to 2015 from 2019. Now there's a plan! Give the best-off elderly a tax break and put all of the elderly who may have to go into the hospital at greater financial risk.

When you step back and look at it, the collective tax-cutting psyche of Mr. Bush and his partisans appears to border dangerously on the grandiose. How else to explain their relentless profligacy in the face of the unprecedented Bush-era swing from budget surplus to deficit, the unmistakable long-term trend of a rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer income distribution, the ballooning costs of war, the weaker dollar, rising oil prices and record deficits in trade and investment - which now require the United States to borrow $2.1 billion a day from abroad? It's time for the people, the ultimate referees in a democracy, to call a timeout.

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