Blog Snybod: More Terri Schiavo Madness

1) After a federal appeals court panel rebuffed them yet again, Terri Schiavo's parents made another desperate attempt to keep their brain-damaged daughter alive, telling a judge that she tried to say "I want to live" just minutes before her feeding tube was removed a week ago.

Can somebody explain to me how a person with no cerebral cortex activity could possibly communicate? If there were a chance of recovery, none of this would be happening. Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state. Her brain is damaged beyond repair. Her husband insists that she would not want to continue living like this. The doctors say that CAT scans show no activity. It is medically impossible for this woman to speak or communicate. Now the least that they can do is allow her to die with dignity, rather than making increasingly ludicrous claims.

2) Friday, the FBI said a man was arrested in Fairview, N.C., on charges of sending an e-mail threat, allegedly for offering a $250,000 bounty for Michael Schiavo's death and $50,000 for that of a judge in the case. The FBI did not identify the judge.

Richard Alan Meywes allegedly sent the e-mail Tuesday to two Tampa-area news organizations and the host of a national conservative talk show, the FBI said.

Meywes was taken into custody at his home and charged with murder for hire and with the transmission of interstate threatening communications, the FBI said.

If convicted, Meywes could face up to 15 years in prison and fines up to $500,000, federal prosecutors said.

Great way to preserve a culture of life, Meywes. Read the full article here.

But it gets worse. Because despite 80% of the American public being horrified by how the government has handled Terri's case and has agreed with her husband's position, that she deserves to die with dignity, the national news has completely abdicated their supposed commitment to responsible journalism.

If you have been paying attention to cable coverage of the Schiavo case, you will see two major themes repeated over and over. First, the repeated bookings of and citings of "witnesses" and "experts" that have previously been debunked, claiming that among other things Ms. Schiavo is "alert and oriented". A neurologist who touts himself as a nominee for "The Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine", an utterly false claim regarding an award that does not exist, has been given apparent run of the airwaves in order to repeatedly assert that Ms. Schiavo is "not that bad", and would be able to "communicate verbally" and "use her arms and legs" under his treatment plan -- a miraculous treatment plan for which, according to Judge Greer, he has been able to offer "no names, no case studies, no videos and no test results". We have even, as many have pointed out, been treated to "psychic" John Edward asserting he was in contact with Terri Schiavo.

Against this background of exploitation and misinformation, the usual bevy of archconservative media pundits has in the last several days begun to increasingly endorse a premise that is, to any rational mind, remarkable: the notion that because the courts have ruled in this particular fashion, it is now time for individuals and government figures to disregard the courts, and take matters into their own hands. [snip]

This is a decision on the part of producers to willfully bend the lines in a manner that promotes sensationalism and potential violence, by intentionally tossing known-false information into a wire-taut public conflict to enhance the "ratings value".