{"id":14713,"date":"2008-02-27T12:40:31","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T17:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14713.html"},"modified":"2008-02-27T12:40:31","modified_gmt":"2008-02-27T17:40:31","slug":"obama-reminds-us-of-the-schiavo-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/obama-reminds-us-of-the-schiavo-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama reminds us of the Schiavo controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Towards the very end of last night’s debate<\/a> in Cleveland, Tim Russert asked Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama if, looking back, there were any voted they’d like to take back. Clinton, coming closer to conceding a mistake than I think I’ve heard before, pointed to her 2002 vote on the Iraq AUMF, before transitioning to talk about why “this election has to be about the future.”<\/p>\n

When the question turned to Obama, he brought up a controversy we haven’t heard much about lately.<\/p>\n

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, any statements or vote you’d like to take back?<\/p>\n

OBAMA: Well, you know, when I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo. And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decisionmaking process of the families.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better.<\/p>\n

And so that’s an example I think of where inaction…<\/p>\n

RUSSERT: This is the young woman with the feeding tube…<\/p>\n

OBAMA: That’s exactly right.<\/p>\n

RUSSERT: … and the family disagreed as to whether it should be removed or not.<\/p>\n

OBAMA: And I think that’s an example of inaction, and sometimes that can be as costly as action.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good point. Intervention in the Schiavo matter was largely a Republican initiative — Bush, for the first time, even cut a vacation short to sign a congressional measure on this — but the Senate’s initial steps could have been prevented had a Democratic senator stood up to object. None did. Obama regrets that and I found his answer rather encouraging.<\/p>\n

Of course, some conservatives didn’t.
\n
\nUnder a headline that read, “Disturbed About Obama<\/a>,” National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote:<\/p>\n

I thought Terri Schiavo was a jarring presence at the debate last night. When Senator Obama was asked what legislative regrets, he didn’t try to walk away from his radical ways any by citing his votes against born-alive infant protection or against banning the transport of children across state lines to circumvent parental notification\/consent laws. Instead he said he would have voted to stop Congress from intervening to save the life of Terri Schiavo.<\/p>\n

On Meet the Press, John McCain left open the possibility that Congress wasn’t wrong to get involved. He should embrace life (and autonomy!) and get comfortable with running against Barack Obama, a radical on these issues.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Sullivan responded<\/a>, “K-Lo wants McCain to run hard against Obama on this kind of thing. Is she nuts?”<\/p>\n

By all means, let’s debate this again. Indeed, I can only hope McCain takes Lopez’s advice. McCain supported congressional intervention in the Schiavo case — he is, despite rumors to the contrary, a conservative Republicans — and toed the party line throughout the affair. The initial unanimous consent agreement notwithstanding, Obama (like Clinton) opposed intervention.<\/p>\n

If the right thinks this makes Obama “a radical on these issues,” let’s have the debate. Because the last time I checked, the clear majority<\/a> of Americans weren’t on McCain’s (or Lopez’s) side on this one.<\/p>\n

Let’s see who’s a “radical”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Towards the very end of last night’s debate in Cleveland, Tim Russert asked Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama if, looking back, there were any voted they’d like to take back. Clinton, coming closer to conceding a mistake than I think I’ve heard before, pointed to her 2002 vote on the Iraq AUMF, before transitioning to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}