Justice DeLay'd, Justice Denied

by Steve Young

Sad. You know. Terri, as Tommie DeLay calls the poor woman he's never met, has suffered so much. Despite the best/worst efforts of Capitol Hill and its broadcasting funnel, the Lords of Loud, she will soon no longer be made to suffer. I can't say the same for those of us who have had to suffer through the Lords of Loud 24/7 "Killing of Terri" torrent of accusations against her husband Michael Schiavo and the holier than thou, non-medical, medical updates.

It's no need to revisit the details of the case as no one outside of some space time continuum hole hasn't head about the story ad nauseam. But that didn't stop the Lords of Loud from making sure their shameful exploitation was seen and heard big time...all the time.

It wasn't enough to just sit in the studio and relegate every second of their shows to the story, At least one proud Lord of Loud brought the blather as close to the victim as possible, broadcasting his syndicated radio and Fox television shows just outside Ms. Schiavo's hospice. A ratings stunt? Certainly not a successful one if you judge from the country's reaction. Shameful? Only if theyÊhave aÊhealthy sense of right and wrong. So...no.

It also turned out to be a less than terrific ratings stunt for the GOP-lead Congress and President Bush, as even Republicans who voted for this gang of self-righteous hypocrites, polled strongly that the White House and Washington's annoyingly virtuous lawmakers had stepped over their legislative sanity barrier. Hannity was quick to point out that the negative polls suggested thatÊthe President and the Congress did not try to "save" Terri for political reasons. Of course, Sean may have not realized that the polls were taken only AFTER the legislation was signed.

At his hospice broadcasting base, Sean was just a step away from caring luminaries such as the incomparable Randall Terry, father of Operation Rescue, who has a permanent injunction against his taking any future actions against Planned Parenthood clinics and found his anti-sodomy campaigns a bit stilted by the fact that his own son, Jamiel, is gay. (Not one to miss an opportunity for loving parental guidance, Randall counseled his son, "you'll be dead by 40."). With the motivating prospect of once again interjecting his code of ethics into another family's life, Terry was ever available spending much of his countless radio appearances this past week disagreeing with his own attorney on the legalities of the matter. Eerily similar to Tom DeLay questioning the plethora of doctors and judges who decided, over and over, that Mrs. Schiavo had a right to make her own decision. A decision, the courts declared every single time, she had communicated to her husband.

Non-doctors of every ilk were lined up to relate us what was best for Terri, ignoring what Terri herself had wanted. Sean repeated over and over, that he didn't know for sure what was best for Terri, then told us what was. A nurse who claimed she took care of Terri for two years, told of Michael's disturbing treatment of his wife and that "he wouldn't care who was around when he did it." Although these abominationsÊsupposedly happened for some two years, Sean did not bring on any other person who was around to witness Mr. Schiavo's "not caring when anyone was around" disturbing treatment.

Among frequent guests during the week of profoundly, principled conservativeness, the Lords of Loud lined up non-Nobel Prize nominees, like the much-paraded about Dr. William Hammesfahr,Êa non-Nobel Prize nominated neurologist whoÊhe, Hannity and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, all maintainedÊwas a Nobel Prize nominee. He wasn't. I figure they'll correct that with all the other corrections they regularly admit (Ha-ha. See, that was a joke).

In any event, sadly, yet peacefully, Terri will soon pass on. But while she leaves, much of the legacy left behind will not be hers, but of aÊPresident, aÊCongress,Êand the Lords of Loud who believe that their 50 percent of the truth counts for more than 100 percent of the law. These self-righteous intruders into the lives of folks going through unimaginable personal pain should scare the hell out of all of us and mark a level of indecency so obscene that the fact that these shenanigans went over the air should cause the FCC to dole out a few dozen of those $500,000 fines. Either that or they best start apologizing to Howard Stern.