As I predicted, Jerry Brown's new blog is turning out to be a provocative and interesting one. Not much Nostradamus in that prediction though. That was a slam-dunk forecast.
Jerry, who is running for California state attorney general in 2006, has weighed in on the Schiavo case: Florida vs. Texas 03/23/05. He points out that, while the controversy over Terri Schiavo has raged, a six-month-old boy in Texas, Sam Hudson, died after being removed from life support against his mother's wishes. This was done pursuant to a law Gov. George W. Bush - the man who errs on the side of life except when it comes to war, the death penalty and people in Texas - signed into law.
Brown frames the issue this way:
The very different treatment of Terri Schiavo in Florida from that of Sun Hudson in Texas raises questions about what principles are actually driving these actions:
1) A juridical right to life
2) Marital and family values requiring deference to the appropriate family member charged with end-of-life decisions
3) State authority versus federal, congressional or judicial decision making
4) Political exploitation of fundamentalist convictions
Brown links to the Arizona Baxter Bulletin, which editorialized as follows (Ambitious politicians, public scrutiny rob Schiavo of dignity 03/25/05; apparently the link was added to the original post, which is dated 3/23):
What's happened here is politicians trying to advance their own agendas on Mrs. Schiavo's frail back. Those congressmen who supported going around the court system hadn't read the case record, they hadn't read Mrs. Schiavo's medical records, they really didn't know or understand the situation. They just used her as an emotional springboard for their own causes, the key word being "used."
Rather than helping Mrs. Schiavo, politicians, from the White House to the Florida legislature, have done her more harm than good. ...
All the politicians have succeeded in doing is show how they're willing to do anything and use anyone to further their own purposes.
In the meantime, Mrs. Schiavo is paraded before the public, her privacy in what should be the most private time stolen from her. Images of her lying in her hospital bed flash across TV screens regularly. Political pundits of all stripes bandy her name about in vain on talk shows. Her dignity has been stripped away.
A case such as Mrs. Schiavo's is a personal issue, a family issue, and politicians and the public should keep their noses out of it.
Brown doesn't maintain a blogroll on his site. But I notice in this post he mentioned the discussion on the Schiavo case from three blogs: Daily Kos, Sue Bob's Diary (definitely a right-leaning blog!) and Lean Left.
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