No, Seriously--Let. Her. Go.

I don't want to add to the volume on this one any further (though I will)--especially since it looks as if the jury is back on Ms. Schiavo's fate, and even more especially because it seems that everyone in the g*d-damned country simply has to voice an opinion on the matter--though I will add that I find it fascinating and heartening that poll after poll says that a decisive majority of Americans think that A. the politicians making hay out of this sad mess are opportunistic scumbags, and B. that the poor woman should just be allowed to go gentle into that good night. (Hey, "swept away on a sweet river of morphine" is exactly how I'd choose to go when it's my time.) But on TV one can encounter nobody except those who vociferously decry this act as judicial murder and Mr. Schiavo as--when they're not concocting vicious theories as to his complicity in the events that led her to her State of Persistent Vegetation--a cold-blooded killer. But I've checked a few things and it turns out that he probably is the good guy here. There's no money in it for him, for one thing--the big bucks from the malpractice suit are gone, eaten up by legal fees and costly medical care. He's clearly moved on with his life--new common-law wife and kids, and so forth. And yet he stays married to this woman, who can only be a brutal emotional burden to him--even though her parents have offered to take her off his hands and see to her care himself. Can somebody think of a reason why, absent money or other mercenary reasons, he would want to end her life unless it was what he genuinely thought/knew she wanted? Is is that he's a Catholic and needs her dead so he can remarry? I doubt it, since he's clearly not too much of a stickler about living in sin--and besides, the Vatican, in its infinite compassion for the suffering and indignity of humanity, wants her kept alive. No, I've tried, and I can't think of a sinister motive behind his decision--well, except of course that just as it's too painful for her parents to imagine her dead, it may be too painful for him to have her living in this state. That's a possibility, and it would reduce him to their inadequate position. Poor Ms. Schiavo. Apparently quite the shrinking violet in life (and a bulimic, which is what got her into all this trouble in the first place--ladies, please stop worrying about how you look and worry instead about how you are), she's managed to become the biggest pain in the ass the state of Florida has seen since that little sh*t Elian Gonzalez declared he didn't want to go back to his stinkhole country of origin. (Though who could blame him, really?)

And Jeb Bush is seriously contemplating some kind of dictatorial fiat, is he? Well, maybe he should--if his convictions are so strong, if he's so convinced that this woman is an innocent life in jeopardy, then, if he lets his hands be tied by red tape and 'legality,' isn't he playing Pontius Pilate if he surrenders her to the will of the courts? I'd say so! So come on, Jeb--put your career where your mouth is--why, you may just force your brother to order your arrest for violation of federal law! Imagine the look on your mother's face! Wouldn't it be worth it just for that?

There's no good ending to this ugliness. None. But an ending would be better than an extension. She'll die, and there will be wailing and cursing among the nabobs of finger-wagging sanctimony for about a week, and that'll be that. If there is a lesson to be learned, perhaps it is this: the speed with which the judicial process has sped this woman to her grave since Congress attempted to usurp the third branch of the government ("Screw the courts! We've got an unconstitutional agenda to enforce!") suggests to me that party loyalty only stretches so far, and that if you piss off the courts enough--federal, state, Supreme--if you impede on their jurisdiction too much/far and attempt to remove from them their rightful authority, you will get b*tch-slapped. Ever since that midnight madness vote in the Senate, the courts have collectively and consistently flipped the Congress the bird--"F*ck you--we made our decision, it was our decision to make--the b*tch is toast!"--and I think that's got a lot to do with the behind-doors realization that if the courts roll over for Congress on this one, they're collectively surrending their Prairie Oysters to the gents up on the Hill. And that they will not do. So congrats, Congresspeople--by acting as if you could ignore the politics of this situation, you've ensured the outcome you (supposedly) wanted to avert. Jackasses.

Oh, and let's not forget that Congress doesn't care that the state of Texas just yanked the feeding tube from a baby whose parents couldn't afford to pay for its treatment. But then, the baby was poor, probably not white, and died under a law signed into legislation by a certain former governor who's now the nominal head of his party. So, you know, f*ck the kid--it's a completely different situation for a myriad of reasons that we won't go into because they're highly complex and totally imaginary/specious. Look, we're hypocritical, evil f*cks with an agenda to advance; don't trouble us with trivial details like "moral consistency" and "respecting the right of life we claim to value, even when it's politically inconvenient to respect it." In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "Doesn't it make you want to throw up everything you've ever even thought about eating?" God Speed, Ms. Schiavo, and you nameless little kid in Texas--the world and its leaders should have treated both of you better.