At least, when it comes to “end-of-life” decisions, according to an AP article at the Washington Post.

In regard to the Terry Schiavo case, Frist said on “Meet the Press”:

“Well, I’ll tell you what I learned from it, which is obvious. The American people don’t want you involved in these decisions.”

Most Americans, I imagine, don’t want the government to intrude on their private lives at all. The sooner Congress and the Executive realize that, the better off we’ll all be.

In the case of Shiavo, it boiled down to a dispute between private parties, and that’s what the courts are for. State courts. Rather than leave it alone, Republicans in Congress, led by Frist, stepped in. They not only used Shiavo to strengthen their ties with the pro-life momement, they also used her to railroad a private bill through Congress that gave power to the federal courts to take the case for review, despite the fact that it had already been decided by the Florida Supreme Court. Thankfully, the federal court system left it alone. At least part of the government occasionally understands its place.

Now Frist is finally starting to understand that his place isn’t in in the middle of private disputes and matters of state law. Why, it almost seems like he got around to reading the 10th amendment. Hopefully the rest of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, will also have this understanding.

We’ll see. After meeting the press, it’s usually back to business as usual in Congress.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 at 10:57 by Michael G. and is filed under Northwest, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.