Slip of the Tongue? (UPDATED)

Larry King’s interview with Michael Schiavo is quite revealing.

KING: Have you had any contact with the family today? This is a sad day all the way around, Michael. We know of your dispute.

M. SCHIAVO: I've had no contact with them.

KING: No contact at all?

M. SCHIAVO: No.

KING: Do you understand how they feel?

M. SCHIAVO: Yes, I do. But this is not about them, it's about Terri. And I've also said that in court. We didn't know what Terri wanted, but this is what we want...

Earlier in the interview, however, Michael Schiavo’s lawyer said something different.

KING: Now they have asked, Michael, the United States Supreme Court, to sort of put a stay on this, Justice Anthony Kennedy has jurisdiction over emergency appeals. Tom DeLay said they're going to do all they can in Congress. Why is that wrong if that is their heartfelt feelings, if they're just trying to, in their opinion, preserve a life?

GEORGE FELOS, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL SCHIAVO: Well, Larry, let me answer that.

KING: All right, George.

FELOS: Each and every one of us in this country has a constitutional right to refuse medical treatment they don't want. Terri exercised that right. She made her statements clear. A court has found evidence to be convincing.

And just because Tom DeLay and cohorts in Washington don't like Terri's choice, doesn't mean the federal government can make medical treatments decisions for you.

We received a subpoena today from the House of Representatives saying Terri is a witness in an investigation, force-feed her against her will. That is just an outrageous abuse of government power. And everyone in this country should be alarmed about that. They ought to be writing their Congressmen and senators, and say -- telling them, please let Terri die in peace. This is a private matter, it's been reviewed for years, the Congress just has no place in this.

KING: Hold it Michael -- on hearsay, George, thought, the only word that she said that is Michael's, right, George?

FELOS: No. That's not correct. Because she made those statements to her best friend, Joan and also to her brother-in-law. There were three witnesses and numerous statements to those witnesses over different periods of time. I don't want to be kept alive artificially. No tubes for me. I want to go when my time comes. If I ever had to be dependent upon anyone, I wouldn't want to live that way.

(Emphasis mine.)

One of these fine gentlemen is off-message; I wonder which one.

(Thanks to The Anchoress)

UPDATE: Terry getsmay get a chance to live. All it took was an act of congress. Oh and the Presidents okays it. No feeding tube reinserted, however.

The House tally:

The House passed the bill on a 203-58 vote early Monday after calling lawmakers back for an emergency Sunday session for debate that stretched past midnight.

The measured was backed by 156 Republicans to 5 who voted against it and 71 who did not vote; 47 Democrats voted in favor, 53 against and 102 did not vote. The lone independent in the 435 member house did not vote.

UPDATE: The federal court agrees with the Florida state court. So now the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is in the queue. Meanwhile, tick-tock, tick-tock for Terri Schiavo.

Comments

[ErikZ]

Since when has congress had the power to do anything like this?

[CGHill]

Since 1866. From the Fourteenth Amendment:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

[Chevy Rose]

Thanks for posting the final count, I dozed off during the vote. I've posted my opinion about living wills and how I'm having my new one worded. This entire issue has brought to the light of the world just what medical professionals deem as "humane" death.
Once more I applaud President Bush for having the guts to make change, rather than let it hide in the dark closets of the lawyers and courts.

[Bleedingbrain]

Hi Juliette,

You are onto something. Mr. Schiavo and his lawyer have expressed vastly different positions.

The lawyer (trained in the art of staying on message) holds to the position that Terri has clearly stated and made known to others that she wanted to be left to die if she ended up being kept alive by tubes.

Mr. Schiavo (untrained in the art of staying on message) accidentally betrayed his true motivation for pursuing the death of Terri.

The message was suppose to be that Terri envisioned a future of tubes and told everyone that death was preferrable.

Mr. Schiavo let slip that no one knows what Terri wants and thus his desire to have her die should be the benchmark.

Ultimately, I believe that people are realistic enough to know that some people have to be left to die. The question as to who gets to make the decision is what is causing the kerfuffle.

People certainly do not want the sleasy Mr. Schiavo to make the decision for Terri any more than they want a sleasy ex-boyfriend to make the decision for them if they ever ended in the same position as Teri.

[Richard Bennett]

Why is it necessary to impugn the character of Mr. Schiavo?

It seems to me there's an honest disagreement here about what the poor woman would want if she were sufficiently conscious to form an opinion about her present circumstances.

It's not necessary to make the people who disagree with you out to be devils.

(BTW, it's spelled "sleazy".)

[baldilocks]

Mr. Bennett: If the horns fit...

There's difference between "disagreement" and so-called "violent disagreement. For two un-related examples, you might disagree me about the comfort level of a sixty-degree day or how much the price of gasoline should be, but that doesn't make you (or me)a "devil." However, if I disagree with someone who sees purposeful mass murder as a legitimate politcal tacitic and I call him/her a devil, then it makes sense.

It's not the disagreement that matters, but the *subject* of the disagreement.

It's called proportion.

CGHill: You're in deep you-know-what. :-)

[Bleedingbrain]

Mr. Bennet,

"Sleasy" applies to special cases of sleaze where one acts in inhuman ways at the request of lawyers or special interest groups. If he were acting in the way that he is of his own accord, he would be merely sleazy.

I'm surprised you don't know this.

Now, you may have heard from your mother that "sleasy is what sleasy does" and what we observe of Mr. Schiavo is nothing but slease.

If a man goes and finds a woman and has children with that woman while his own wife lies broken in a hospital, that man falls into both the "sleasy" and "sleazy" categories.

Ordinarily, a man of honor would devote his life to his wife through thick and thin.

Mr. Schiavo is, by empirical measure, a slease bag and a sleaze bag.

Mr. Bennet, you want to give the man the benefit of the doubt and suggest that perhaps he is as pure as the driven snow.

Why pretend that he is? I don't see how that is beneficial.

In normal courts, the character of a witness is important in judging the merits of a case, why would it be irrelevant in this particular case?

[Bleedingbrain]

Grrr....I typed Mr. Bennett's name wrong.

Grrrr.

[Bleedingbrain]

Now the Feds seem to be agreeing with the Florida courts and are letting Terri starve.

Her own parents are pleading for her life and have appealed.

I can only hope.

[Dave Munger]

Oh no, the legislature is usurping legilative authority from the judiciary!!!

[Richard Bennett]

It's not very Christian, Baldilocks.

[baldilocks]

What's not Christian? Calling a spade a spade? Please, chapter and verse.

[baldilocks]

Oh and was that a goalpost movement I just witnessed?

[SusAno]

You lost me.

I thought the courts got involved when Michael Schiavo petitioned them to determine whether her feeding tube should be removed (after 8 years of futile treatment and therapy). Wasn't the whole point that she had no living will so her husband asked a court to determine based on testimony from assorted witnesses what her wishes likely were?

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/03/terri_schiavo.html

That link has a link to the PDF of the court findings. Along with a CT scan of her brain. Which shows her cortex is either completely degraded into fluid or almost completely degraded into fluid. Oh and the reason they don't do a MRI is because she has thalamic implants to prevent Parkinson-style tremors. Apparently deeply invasive surgery might remove them (or possibly leave a few fragments to internally splash around in an Magnetic Resonance Imaging system) but would then leave her shell in uncontrolled spasms.

To sum up:

1) Anyone who say she is coming back either does not believe in science or is a fraud or doesn't know the facts of the case.

2) Anyone who says "they" have denied her an MRI either does not believe in science or thinks more invasive procedures are fine in order to determine if invasive procedures should be stopped or doesn't know the facts of the case.

[Richard Bennett]

"...Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love"

Don't be a hater, Baldilocks.

[Dave Munger]

Oh, I get it, because Love is the greatest of those virtues, Christians aren't allowed to hate evil. Love = absence of hate. "Fiscal conservatives" understand English so much better than humans do!

[baldilocks]

You asked for it, Mr. Bennett.

[Some Guy]

I haven't been following this case closely but have generally been sympathetic to the case for not pulling the tubes.

If the lawyers statement is true though (and I can't see why that can't be verified) than that ruins the parents case as far as I'm concerned.

If the husband is the only witness than they'd be pulling the plug without a credible witness as to her wishes. If they have multiple witnesses than this looks like the pro-life movement just harassing people.

And lets look at the gotcha quote :
"We didn't know what Terri wanted, but this is what we want"

right before Larry asked this :

"Do you understand how they feel?"

It seems to me Schiavo was referring to the parents. They don't know what Terri wanted.

[baldilocks]

"We" includes the speaker; in this case, Michael Schiavo.

[Some Guy]

He appears to have been trying to explain what he thinks the parents are feeling.

[Ben]

It's pretty simple -- I saw this on freerepublic.com and it sums it up perfectly:

Man "finds" Wife unconscious.
Man keeps Wife unconscious.
Man gets malpractice money for Wife.
Man wants Wife's money.
Man wants Wife dead so Man can have money.
Man gets Lawyer.
Lawyer is secret Hospice Chairman.
Lawyer promises Man that Wife will die at Hospice he Chairs...

Nuff said.

-b

[Teri Lester]

Oh, and Ben, apparently Lawyer made campaign contributions to Judge.

[liz]

I am with SuzAno on this. I have also read every court document available.

Mrs. Schiavo had a severe eating disorder, bulemia. She starved herself and caused herself to vomit up food, which lead to a mineral imbalance incompatible with life, which lead to a heart attack, which lead to anoxia, leaving her with no electrical impulses from the brain.

Her husband pursued vigorous therapy FOR YEARS, and finally came to hear what neurologists (who had no reason to lie) had been saying: there is no hope of recovery, and his wife had had no capacity to think, feel, or respond since the original heart attack and anoxia. It was only due to advances in medicine that she was alive at all.

Her husband asked the court to evaluate the evidence on his wife's expressed wishes. The court found that Mrs. Schiavo had indeed expressed a wish that her body not be kept alive should her mentality and personality be gone beyond hope of recovery.

It is tragic for all concerned. I am particularly compassionate to Mrs. Schiavo's parents, who are unable to believe that their daughter went beyond recovery years ago.

Why is it necessary to lie about, or vilify, Mr. Schiavo?

[Dave Munger]

Which of those medical advances is keeping her alive now? What is killing her now that would not kill me if it was done to me?

It is not neccessary to lie about Mr. Schiavo in order to villify him. Some of what he is factually known to have done is "villainous" (not the word I am naturally inclined to use), such as his vindictive attempts to deny her parents visitation, and forcibly preventing efforts to feed her by mouth. She did get medical treatment up to a point, after that she was denied basic care, such as antibiotics for infections, and having her teeth brushed.