Today, bloggers reflect on the Supreme Court’s decision that Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube shouldn’t be reinserted and respond to news that protestors forced Kyrgyzstan’s president out of his country. They also weigh in on President Bush’s condemnation of a “vigilante” group that targets illegal immigrants.
Feeding frenzy: The Supreme Court denied an emergency request to reinsert Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube; soon after, a judge in Florida refused to let Gov. Jeb Bush step in. “Now the only question is whether Governor Jeb Bush, who is the one remaining obsticle between Terri Schiavo and death, will stand or lie down,” writes conservative John Rabe, responding to William Bennett’s argument in National Review Online that Gov. Bush should employ the “state police powers” to keep Schiavo alive.
“Its time to tell the bush brothers to lay off and leave her alone and let this brain dead person pass away peacefully,” insists red-state liberal Magnum Serpentine. The Wonderful World of Sarcasm’s Russ McNamara wants Gov. Bush to step in: “He’d get his ass impeached so fast, not even his brother could help him.”
“I cannot agree that the best course of action now is to violate the court orders and take custody of Terry Schiavo,” regrets South Carolina law student Jared in Truth Quante-fied. Although he condemns Michael Schiavo, “The real solution is not to mount last-ditch efforts, but to act through legislation today to allow proper due process in continuing cases.”
Read more about Schiavo.
The Kyrgyzstan cure: Today, protestors in Kyrgyzstan took control of President Askar Akayev’s headquarters “amid widespread allegations of fraud during parliamentary elections in the former Soviet republic.”The American Prospect’s Matthew Yglesias notes, “[I]f these goings on in Bishkek meet a happy ending, it will be woven into the ‘Bush doctrine’ mythos, so it’s worth giving early notice that this is wrong.” He claims that the Bush administration “has never taken an especially pro-democracy line in Central Asia, where our main ally is Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, a leader featuring one of the worst human-rights records in the world.”
Nathan of Eurasian issues blog Registan responds, “Matthew’s attempt to head off any credit for the administration (and it does deserve some, even if he’s right that the Bush administration’s policy is a continuation of Clinton’s, though, in my opinion, it has more teeth) makes me wonder if he’ll jump up to blame Bush if things do go wrong.” He also points out that American officials can’t confirm press reports that President Akayev has fled the country.
The Corsair’s Ron Mwangaguhunga, a New York-based writer/editor, believes that the protests are a triumph for neoconservatives. “There will be no more Machiavellian coddling of dictators in the long term interests of the United States. Now, if we could only do something proactive about that tyrant swine in Zimbabwe, and these genocidal semi-savages in the Sudan.” And Bush doctrinist Publius Pundit adds a picture of a Kyrgyzstani woman to a growing list of “pretty revolution babes.”
Read more about Kyrgyzstan.
Cowboys and Mexicans: The Washington Times reports that over 1,000 volunteers from a group called the Minuteman Project plan to “monitor the movement of illegal aliens [crossing into the United States from Mexico] for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol.” During Wednesday’s summit with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush disavowed the group: “I’m against vigilantes in the United States of America. I’m for enforcing law in a rational way.”
“This from a president who has allowed illegal immigration to increase after the September 11, 2001, attacks,” fulminates conservative Polipundit. “For him to even insinuate that his fellow countrymen—Americans taking time out of their busy lives to do the job he refuses to do — are ‘hunting down’ border jumpers and breaking the law makes me sick,” claims right-winger LaShawn Barber. Jerkasaurus’ Sarah, who describes herself as an “Official Tool of the Patriarchy™,” observes that Mexico mistreats its own illegal immigrants: “So why is Fox so worried about what we do up here? Seems he’s got his own mess to clean up.”
Read more about the Minuteman Project.
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