Michael Kinsley Must Be Awfully Smart

Micheal Kinsley, LA Times editor and WaPo columnist, must be awfully smart.  The current evidence - he seems to know a lot about George Bush's agenda regarding late-stage medical care and the "Right to Die":

In the Schiavo case, Bush and de facto House Speaker Tom DeLay earnestly believe that human life is a gift from God that no one has the right to extinguish. "No one" includes the person whose life it is. The president and Congress probably would not swoop down and prevent a family from pulling the plug if everyone involved agreed that this was the unambiguous wish of the patient herself. But the situation is rarely so clear. Even when there are living wills, people's wishes are often thwarted. The right to die on your own terms -- and, more important, the ability to take comfort in knowing, long before you need to, that you will have that right if you wish to exercise it -- is barely alive. Clearly, if Bush and DeLay had their way, they would pull the plug on that notion.

Clearly?  Upon what is that statement based?

Here is the President's statement on Terri Schiavo:

The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues.  Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life.  Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern.  It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities.

Well, maybe Mr. Kinsley sees the intent in that paragraph, but I don't.

Or perhaps Mr. Kinsley is thinking of the 1999 Advance Directives Act George Bush signed while Governor of Texas.  Here is a description, and another.  But wait!  Far from outlawing the "right to die", it actually clarified the rules under which a hospital can terminate a patient on the basis that further care is futile, and the rules under which a patient can refuse further treatment. 

By the way, this Texas bill became a major talking point amongst lefties who misread the reporting and misunderstood the bill.  Even the national press noted an apparent inconsistency between Texas George the plug-puller, and D.C. Bush the err-on-the-side-of-lifer.  Bush has certainly not left much of a record supporting the Kinsley thesis.

Although we applaud Mr. Kinsley for his independent thinking, please - when can we expect the "reality based community" to re-connect with reality?

MORE:  Kinsley on the couch, or "Why is he making this up?"  How would I know?  But my guess is this - he is inventing a  reason to oppose the Terry Schiavo Relief Act, which, as Kevin Drum noted, is not really all that offensive to conventional liberal sensibilities. 

Maybe the image of Kinsley on the Ramparts, defending our right to terminate the terminally ill, has appeal to him; the fact that our post-Cruzan rights are not threatened by Bush (and were clarified when he was in Texas) is only the merest of impediments to this slippery slope fantasy.

More evidence - these three ideas appear consecutively in the column, but are near-nonsense:

Specifically, people are terrified of being kept joylessly alive, active minds trapped in shut-down bodies or lost minds mocking the dignity of a lifetime, just to prove somebody's political point.

The Schiavo case is not exactly about anyone's right to die, since we don't know whether Schiavo would want to die in her current circumstances. But concern about being able to choose death over pain and/or extreme degradation is what has riveted people to the Schiavo story.

It is riveting because of the choice between death and degradation?  Then why did CNN show the video of the mom and her daughter every five minutes?  I almost thought the story was riveting because a mother was trying to save her child. 

And if the Schiavo case is "not exactly about anyone's right to die", then why does Mr. Kinsley tell us that "people are terrified of being kept joylessly alive...just to prove somebody's political point"?

Baffling.  Re-connect the reality tube.

 

Comments

[richard mcenroe]

And maybe Kinsley is just connecting a check from Soros' Death in America project...

[TM]

More on Death in America. Interesting - are they pro, or anti?

[RB]

"Specifically, people are terrified of being kept joylessly alive, active minds trapped in shut-down bodies or lost minds mocking the dignity of a lifetime, just to prove somebody's political point."

Kinsley has Parkinson's Disease; sounds like what he really means is "I am terrified of..."

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