March 2005

There were 52 posts published in March 2005 (this is page 3 of 9).

Federalizing Family Cases

To a large degree, I’ve ignored the news the last few days. But I did catch pieces of it. And what I’ve seen is simply amazing. Just when you think GOPUSA can’t sink any lower, it does. Who would have imagined that we’d see emergency sessions of Congress and a president rearranging his travel schedule just to continue feeding a woman who’s been virtually brain dead for 15 years?
As this Digby post highlights, most of these “life saving” lawmakers really aren’t interested in your run-of-the-mill vegetative state victims. But when the religious right comes calling with a poster child to fan the flames of the latest culture war we’re witnessing the lengths to which they go to appease. What was all that we heard about limiting the reach of the federal government?
If the Democrats really wanted to fight fire with fire (crass politics), they’d turn around this wedge and shove it right back in between the business and religious right wings of the GOP. I’m sure there are plenty of money folks who aren’t too keen about the prospect of indefinite medical care and litigation for patients in a persistent vegetative state.

Crime TV

No, it wasn’t just my imagination:

As critic Tim Cuprisin says, CNN has “seemed ready to give Smith her own show.” And now they are: Thursday night at 10pm, NewsNight will be preempted for “Ashley Smith: A Hero’s Journey.” It’s a special edition of People in the News. (Last night, NewsNight became “26 Hours: Inside the Manhunt.”)

I stopped watching stuff about this, but someone was keeping track. Mind you, this was a few days after the incident

> 7pm: Anderson Cooper 360: “What did Ashley Smith do that may have saved her life?,” CNN.com asked. (Anderson is in Beirut.)
> 8pm: Paula Zahn Now: The show examined “the possible reasons behind Atlanta’s killing spree.”
> 9pm: Larry King Live: “Brian Nichols’ brother speaks out in an exclusive prime-time interview,” the teaser said.
> 10pm: NewsNight: Aaron Brown’s first block was devoted to the shooting aftermath.

We had a few good comments below on why this story has received so much attention. I get some, but not all of the reasons. More on that later.

Providing Rhetorical Aid To The Enemy

President Bush yesterday [emphasis added]:

I like the idea of people running for office. There’s a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don’t know, I don’t know if that will be their platform or not. But it’s — I don’t think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I’m looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.

Wow, there’s a great idea. This guy really does get dangerous when he strays from the teleprompter, doesn’t he?

Bankrupting America

Thomas at newsrack blog identifies a couple of the House Bankruptcy bill offenders.
Interesting aside: Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD-6) is one of the few Congress critters who I’ve met in person. On a trip back in the college era we chatted with him for a few minutes [a college classmate had interned in his office]. He’s also a fellow Seventh-day Adventist. I’m not sure how he squares selling out the interests of the poor to billion dollar credit card companies with the gospel message, but that’s a topic for a separate post.