Text 10965, 108 rader
Skriven 2005-04-02 13:08:06 av Alan Hess
Ärende: where have real conservatives gone?
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Kane is right on in this column.  Today's "conservatives" don't mind judicial
activism if it's in their favor.

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.kane02apr02,1,7889588.column?col
l=bal-pe-maryland
Schiavo case turned conservatism on its head
Gregory Kane



April 2, 2005

NOW THAT Terri Schiavo has gone -- not peacefully, but as a national spectacle
-- to her maker, we are left to ponder how conservatives trashed and savaged
what was supposedly their own philosophy.

Whatever happened to the conservatives who were supposed to be against big
government and for states' rights, separation of powers and judicial restraint?

Those conservatives didn't show up in the imbroglio that involved Terri
Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler.
No doubt trying to prove their "street cred" on the right-to-life issue to
religious conservatives, President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush, poked their noses into a matter that would have been settled long ago
by Florida law and judges if it weren't for endless appeals.

"In cases where there are serious doubts and questions," President Bush said
Thursday after the news of Terri Schiavo's death, "the presumption should be in
the favor of life."

How about making a presumption in favor of what the Constitution says, Mr.
President?

Florida is one of more than 30 states in which one spouse makes the decisions
-- including those involving life and death -- if the other spouse becomes
incapacitated. That's probably why a Florida court appointed Michael Schiavo as
Terri Schiavo's guardian after she suffered cardiac arrest in 1990.

In 2000, two years after Michael Schiavo asked a Florida court to remove his
wife's feeding tube, Judge George Greer granted the request. The Schindlers
appealed. The Florida Supreme Court denied the appeal and the U.S. Supreme
Court refused to hear the case.

In times past, true conservatives would have understood this. A state judge
makes a ruling consistent with state law. The Supreme Court refuses to
intervene. A matter for the judicial branch of government was properly handled
within the judicial branch.

But today's conservatives were for conservative principles -- such as the
separation of powers -- before they were against them. After the Schindlers
filed another appeal, the state legislature got in on the act and passed a bill
allowing Jeb Bush to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted after it was
removed in October 2003. That law was ruled unconstitutional, as it should have
been.

The appeals continued. We certainly can't blame the Schindlers for that. But we
can blame the president for not having a clue about what the Constitution he
swore to uphold and defend actually says. Last month, President Bush signed
into law a bill that would let the case of Terri Schiavo be heard in federal
court -- after the Supreme Court had refused on at least two occasions to hear
it.

It was clear what the president and the federal legislators who voted for the
bill wanted: a federal judge who would engage in a little judicial activism for
them and repeal Florida law and overturn a decision of Florida judges.

For the Bush brothers, some conservative Republicans and right-to-lifers, this
flagrant circumvention of state and federal law was justified in order to save
Terri Schiavo's life. That's the "presumption" President Bush talked about
after Terri Schiavo's death.

But such a presumption didn't compel him to commute the sentence of every death
row inmate when he was governor of Texas, and it couldn't have been because
Bush believes the justice system in his state is perfect. That nasty business
in Tulia, Texas, when dozens of innocent folks ended up in prison based on the
perjury of a corrupt undercover cop, happened on George W. Bush's watch when he
was governor of that state.

President Bush believes in a "presumption in favor of life" when it's
convenient for him. Too many conservatives these days believe in core
conservative principles when it's convenient for them and discard them when
they prove too nettlesome.

Take John Ashcroft, now thankfully departed as the nation's attorney general.
He had no problem hustling sniper Lee Boyd Malvo from the custody of police in
Maryland -- the state where he and John Muhammad were captured and should have
been tried -- and handing him over to Virginia. Malvo couldn't get the death
penalty in Maryland. At the time, he could in Virginia. Ashcroft's motives were
clear. Other conservatives all but canonized him for his flagrant jackbooting
and violation of the principles of states' rights and federalism.

The brothers Bush will no doubt score points with those folks who stood around
with signs talking about the "murder" of Terri Schiavo (those folks really need
to look up the definition of the word "murder") but some basic conservative
doctrine took a beating on this one.

The Florida law regarding one spouse making decisions when the other can't is
clear. We may not like it.

But we sure have to live with it.

Copyright + 2005, The Baltimore Sun

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