masterful plot...working like a charm...huge GOP win...stop

[AVID]

I just can't understand anyone saying that the GOP overstepped their reach by getting this Schiavo thing boiling over in the media.

This has been a huge success, further dividing progressives and further demonizing liberals as the party of death.

Now Jackson has piled on bonus points to the Rovian victory.

Idiot America is eating this shit up. The polls might show that 70% of America thinks the government should stay out, but this story hasn't even made it to halftime. By the time cnn, fox, Nancy Grace, Hannity, O'lielly, Scarborough gets through with this case idiot america will turn on sane people trying to make personal, family decisions.

Pardon me while I go throw up. :puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

edit to add :puke:

:hi:

[Fridays Child]

1. It has divided the right wingnuts just as much, or more.

It just needs to stop. Period.

[bpilgrim]

2. this is a big 'W" for their 'ACTIVIST JUDGES' meme

which is downright SEDITIOUS, imho.

:hi:

peace

[sazemisery]

3. My sentiments exactly!

:nuke: :grr:

[seabeyond]

4. party of law..............democrats didnt advocate death or life, but law

[goodboy]

12. yet another Du'er sees jj's participation as a repuke victory...

I'm just sayin...

[SaveElmer]

5. You are wrong in this case...and I'll tell you why

Unlike other right wing causes that get publicity (judges, abortion etc), this will eventually affect in an immediate and personal way, just about everyone. Either people will want to choose the manner of their death, or they will have to decide for a loved one. By stepping into this choice Republicans have really hurt themselves. There is no way Fox et al are gonna be able to spin this one.

People have too short an attention span to worry about judges, and things like abortion, or gay rights, most people don't expect they will ever have to deal with it personally. This they will, and they realize it!

[Martin Eden]

6. If you're going to throw up ...

... at least do it graphically:puke: :puke: :puke:

I find the whole Shiavo spectacle quite disgusting as well, but I don't think it will necessarily win more converts to the Republican Party. It is energizing the fundie base, but they're already a lost cause politically. The Democrats have been relatively silent (and aren't particularly associated with te removal of the feeding tube), while the silent majority (70% in the polls) feel the politicians should butt out.

[AlCzervik]

7. I think that was their plan at first, that and taking

the heat off Tom Delay and i think what they didn't expect was for it to backfire on them which imo it has.

[stillcool]

8. i think it is a fix.......

for news junkies, and cable news imbibers...a major distraction to keep them in a manufactured state of absurdity.

[Luminous Animal]

9. The Democrats have no horse in this race.

If any Democrat says anything but, "It is a matter between the family and their doctors and the court," then they would be an idiot.

[BuyingThyme]

25. You're right.

It's so simple. But still, so many don't get it. (Just take a look around here.)

[Luminous Animal]

30. Truth

This is the first day I've come back to DU in 5 days. The mass hysteria was unsettling.

I don't know how many people here go to conservative boards, but I visit a few and there are a couple of trolls on my board. The trolls are a good indication of the republican's talking points and they are working it up to paint "leftists" as taking a victorious satisfaction upon Terri's death. It's the same old story of the fundamentalist right trying to force the national conversation into a simple story about a fight between good and evil, black and white. We need to step back and let the right have this argument.

A word of caution to the moderators here and to most of the membership, be on the lookout for members who post any sentiments of satisfaction, or victory, or glee when Terri dies. Those type of posts only serve to set us up for an ideological defeat.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. Read my lips:

"Diversionary tactic."

[knight_of_the_star]

13. A poorly done one

A diversion that draws off a major part of your forces and turns the diversion into the real thing before the real thing takes off is a major tactical blunder.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. Time will tell. nt

[VOX]

11. The judges, the judges, the judges, the judges, the judges, the judges...

When this freak show finally winds down, we will hear shit from the MSM like, "Well, I think that one thing that we can **all** agree on is that the judiciary has way too much power in our country," etc., etc., *belch*.

My best guess is that this crap has 1) taken the spotlight off of the Chimp's dismal numbers; and 2) is a royal setup to grease the skids for the Chimp's right-wing judgeship noms, which will be coming by the bushel-basketful.

May I seriously join you in a spit-up? :puke:

[More Than A Feeling]

14. Dude, no, just...no

How has it demonized liberals as the party of death? Dems in congress stood aside and let the bill go through. We have sat on our hands and watched Bush and Delay struggle to keep their heads above water.

Isn't Jesse Jackson generally considered to be liberal? What about Ralph Nader? You can't have it both ways. Either we are the culture of death, or liberals are sucking up up to Bush and Delay. Not both.

Nope, this is the GOP's stink bomb, we have successfully washed our hands of the matter. I have to think that America will be more happy about judges now that they have watched them defend the rights of families to make their own decisions against an activist legislature.

Honestly, I think we are so beaten in our own minds that everything has to be a defeat for us, or a diversion or whatever. Can't we kick back and enjoy for once? The GOP is not God, they do genuinely screw up once in a while, and this is one of those times. Lets make it into a lasting hell, ending only when we retake the house and/or the senate in 2006.

[Tactical Progressive]

16. I tend to think this will hurt Repubs alot more than Dems

As others have mentioned, the extreme religious antagonists involved in this aren't ever going to vote Democrat, even if Kerry has always gone to church ten times as much as Bush, or any other thing. Nor does the 'motivation' factor mean much because they are already motivated to support whatever right-wing lunacy they are infused with by their media handlers. And even if they had not tried for a sleazy political power play here there is no end to the things that come along that would allow them to foment anger and activism among their nutcase base. In short, the people incited by the Schiavo case can be activated at will and aren't open to debate anyway.

But as to this specific choice of inflammation, they picked a hugely unpopular position on something that is for most people a scary and discomforting situation.

I think for that broad group of people made very uncomfortable by the strident activism of the religious right, this whole issue resolves down to seeing just how scary extreme right-wing judicial activism would be. They all watched Tom DeLay and Jeb and Bush and returning Congressmen constantly going to judge after judge after judge to get their way. It takes no leap from there to connect unease over this incident to unease over these people trying to plant their ideologues into the heart of American jurisprudence.

Nothing could have made this any clearer than the Schiavo case.

Whether Dems will be able to take advangage of the feeling of unease when confronted with the inevitable attempts of BushCo to pack ideologues onto the federal courts, I don't know, but this Republican circus of an attempt to ram their rabid convictions down America's throat can't hurt the effort to slow it down.

[Carolab]

17. Definitely the REVERSE OF THAT has happened here.

I notice how you so casually dispense with the SEVENTY PERCENT who are against.

The numbers are with US, not with them.

This has only HURT them and the Democrats TOTALLY made THE REPUBLICANS own their OWN mess.

Stop playing the victim. We are winning this one. Even their own party is turning against them, including conservative judges.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. Gee....and here I was thinking the exact opposite had happened.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. If you talk to republicans about this

they eat this crap up and they think all the polls are skewed and flawed. :eyes: Really sad. They think because they are the majority in the government people will agree with them all the time. They need to fuck off.

[Tactical Progressive]

20. Don't get defensive over their 'liberal media' poll crap

Just say yeah, these right-wing corporate polling companies are always slanting their polls towards Republicans, and from all the people you've talked to it's more than 70% against the Republicans.

As to the attitude, it's just typical Republicans taking shit then making a shit sandwich and eating it with a smile. They make their own reality.

[Swamp Rat]

21. Nope, it has backfired.

Their distraction is failing and the worm is about to turn.

[BurtWorm]

22. As a Worm, I have to say I agree.

The Republicans have been dancing with the devil for too long not to get burned.

[AVID]

23. but burt, the MSM hasn't finished with it yet

Can't you see the CNN polls now?

"Is Terri Schiavo a martyr?" and "How much pain did Terri suffer?"

[BurtWorm]

26. CNN and the MSM were out of touch on the impeachment too.

I think we're seeing 1998 all over again, and that was not a good year for Republicans or the mainstream media.

[Swamp Rat]

28. Maybe we should just disregard the CNN polls since they are utter BS.

Let them ask if Terri Schiavo a martyr. It will only prove that CNN is doing it's best to become a TV tabloid like Faux News or the National Inquirer.

[Batgirl]

33. When is the MSM

going to show us a little CGI animation of "Stages of Dehydration" -- digitally rendered patient in hospital bed..."here is what Terri might have looked like during her last days after the feeding tube was removed" -- if there's anyone who thinks they haven't at least thought about it, I want some of whatever you're smoking.

[BurtWorm]

24. DUers are by nature divided. Don't judge what's going on out there

by what goes on in here. Jackson may actually be performing a truly humanitarian service to these poor nutcases. His mission may actually have been to do what the twisted Brothers were failing to do, which was to get these lost souls focused on the inevitable. At the same time, he's scoring a huge point for Democrats and progressives among the centrals--the people who don't think voting for Bush or Republicans is stupid, but who think the Republicans overreached on the Schiavo case. They're seeing that Dems are more reassuringly nuanced than the fascisticly lock-step Repubs. I think, anyway. I could be wrong, but I think the Dems have been brilliant to step back and let the Repubs self-destruct in public in a big way.

[SoCalDem]

27. Bear in mind that MOST people are only glimpsing a snippet or two

or an at-work conversation every now and then.. WE are news junkies, so it's swallowing us up like "the Blob", but most people do not watch that much cable news.. Look at their dismal numbers.. SpongeBob beats them ALL.. every day..

We see all the hoopla because we LOOK for it.. Most people get the paper and look for grocery coupons, sports scores, road closures,school lunch menus..

I bet you could run this experiment and have your faith restored:

Pick a mall or grocery store, and ask every 5th person..

Who is Terri Shiavo?
Who is Joe Scarborough?
Chris Matthews?
What's George Bush's son's name? (a trick question)

Most people only think about politics in election "season".. then they retreat to their bunkers and watch American Idol :)

[ConsAreLiars]

29. Quite right

Folks here sometimes think DU and FR and cable news constitute reality. For most people, "the news" is just background noise, and the fact that Congress and Chimpy are intervening in this case is just an affirmation of their irrelevance to the real world and daily life. There is the "inside the beltway" form of narrowness that characterizes most of the talking heads, but there is also a variant of that among us netizens where expanding that sphere of reality to include news junkies on the net is only slightly less narrow in effect. This is not the fault of those who ignore these topics. It is just a fact of life in the real world where day-to-day survival takes precedence.

[applegrove]

31. This was not Rove driven. The activist Right Wing demanded attention

and Bush had to be woken up and flew to Washington. This is where the democracy and the voters..take a bit out of Rove's plan. They want some action. They foolishly think they won the election. They do not understand they were used.

[AVID]

32. now is when the RW will capitalize - "evil judges kill schiavo" nt

[applegrove]

34. They'll try and spin. But even the followers by all accounts are getting

tired of the double talk.