<H4>Ralph Nader, meet Randall Terry</H4>

I hadn’t posted much about Terri Schiavo to this point, but Ralph Nader’s idiocy was just too much.

Nader, a lawyer who should know better, took his place with the Randall Terrys of the world Thursday, March 24, in calling for Terri Schiavo’s feeding and water tubes to be reinserted.

“A profound injustice is being inflicted on Terri Schiavo,” Nader asserted. “Worse, this slow death by dehydration is being imposed upon her under the color of law, in proceedings in which every benefit of the doubt-and there are many doubts in this case-has been given to her death, rather than her continued life.”

Nader may be a lawyer, but he has apparently shown as much interest in the actual legal proceedings to this point, and now has as much familiarity with them as Dr. Bill Frist, Senate majority leader, does with the medical side of the case.

Maybe we can lock the two of them in a closet together.

But there’s more idiocy from Ralph.

The courts not only are refusing her tube feeding, but have ordered that no attempts be made to provide her water or food by mouth. Terri swallows her own saliva. Spoon feeding is not medical treatment.

“This outrageous order proves that the courts are not merely permitting medical treatment to be withheld, it has ordered her to be made dead,” Nader and (Wesley) Smith assert.

Wrong. In right-to-die cases, courts have repeated found that manual outside help like this is just as much a medical treatment as are tubes, breathing machines, etc.

Ralph will never get my third-party or independent candidate support for dogcatcher now, let alone the presidency. And if the Green Party ever considers endorsing him, affiliating with him or lending its name to any candidacy of his in any way, then I’ll move my progressive vote elsewhere, if Democrats still aren’t worthy of it either.