Modern Conservatism in a Nutshell

I was reading the National Review the other day, as I do for amusement, and I came across this post by its editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, 'Disturbed About Obama'. What disturbed her?-

"I thought Terri Schiavo was a jarring presence at the debate [Tuesday] 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."

She then links to an article of hers on Sen. Obama and the "culture of death" (paging Ramesh Ponnuru!).

Let's talk about Schiavo and radicalism for a minute. First, here's what Obama said-

"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.

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.

And so that’s an example I think of where inaction… can be as costly as action."

He is right... the majority of the American people-- 85%+-- stood opposed to what the fanatics in the Republican party were doing in the Schiavo case. You had the entire party coming together to interfere in a private family matter, in a crass attempt to score political points with the religious right. You had the Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, offering his diagnosis of her via an old VHS tape on the Senate floor. You had the House Majority Leader, Tom Delay, threatening judges and talking about how "God has brought to us... Terri Schiavo" to use. You had the President of the United States ending his vacation early and flying back to DC in the middle of the night to sign 'emergency legislation', a courtesy he would not extend later that year to the trapped citizens of New Orleans.

And yet the people who looked at all of this and saw a circus, a gross abuse of power... they are the radicals? According to the National Review, the answer is yes. Remember that NR's Jonah Goldberg just last month compared those opposed to the Schiavo intervention to "grotesque euthanizers" and "Nazis".

Poor Mr. Buckley is not even yet in his grave and he's already spinning!