Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s brother, has become a righteous advocate for the vulnerable and defenseless since his sister’s untimely demise. He opened today’s session of the euthanasia symposium with a stirring critique of media bias and the prevalent anti-disability attitudes that are reflected in the way these stories are reported, which he believes, adversely impacts the overall culture.
As an illustration, he quoted a recent Rolling Stone “satire” for its crude language and crass attitude toward his sister—put in the mouth of President Bush in a faux interview—but really reflecting the writer’s and publication’s own state of heart. From the article:
Let’s talk about some of the low points of your second term. Why did you make such a big deal out of intervening in the whole Terri Schiavo thing?
Well, Jeb calls me up one day and says, “A bunch of Jew lawyers are trying to pull the plug on some broad down here. I think we can spin it that they’re doing it because she’s Christian.” I ask him what he means, and he tells me the story. I tell Karl, and Karl says to me, “Mr. President, I am fully erect. This is a winner all the way.” He says we can jam up Bill Nelson down there for his Senate race by forcing him to take sides with the husband in the story, who’s like this Mike Ditka-looking atheist guy who wants to starve his wife to death while he’s running around knocking up other chicks.
Politics is all about forcing people to make simple choices, that’s what my dad always told me, and this one was an A+ choice for us. Karl, you should have seen him, he was on the phone day and night, telling every news director in the country that he wanted to see that Schiavo lady’s face “on every channel, like it’s the State of the Union address.” So sure enough, we’re watching TV later that night, and CNN just has her and her drooling-ass, doped-up smile on this endless loop. Karl is literally jumping up and down with excitement at the sight of her. “She’s the best thing since Old Yeller,” he’s saying. “I want to see every liberal in the country on Larry King campaigning to yank her feeding tube. Get Ben Affleck on there, Sean Penn. Show them side by side with her looking fat and helpless with those dead-fish eyes of hers, split-screen. She’ll get us 10,000 votes an hour Too bad she died.
Too bad she died: Yeah. Karl was almost inconsolable when she passed. He kept looking for a replacement. Karen Hughes called it his “vegetable hunt.” He’d call long lists of registered Democrats, asking if they had a brain-dead wife they wanted to pull the plug on.
That’s not only crude, it’s not funny. More to the point, Bobby noted:”People write and publish these kinds of articles with no concern for the pain it causes to the parents and relatives of people who are in these disabling conditions.”
But Bobby: They’re the “compassionate” ones, remember? Disgusting.
