Accountable?

E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post goes after Dr. Bill Frist, Tom "The Hammer" Delay, and some of their colleagues in Where's The Apology?
Bending the Facts on Schiavo.

We are entitled to our moral, ethical and philosophical commitments. We are not entitled to our own facts.

More specifically:

The autopsy in the Terri Schiavo case provides a rare moment of political accountability. We should not "move on," as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suggested. No, we cannot move on until those politicians who felt entitled to make up facts and toss around unwarranted conclusions about Schiavo's condition take responsibility for what they said -- and apologize.

Frist wasn't content to speak as a prolifer -- he offered an extensive opinion as a doctor, citing medical textbooks.

In the midst of his impressively detailed medical review, Frist declared flatly: "Terri's brother told me Terri laughs, smiles, and tries to speak. That doesn't sound like a woman in a persistent vegetative state."

Tom Delay agreed to the pulling of the plug on his own father, but he too knew better about Terry Shiavo.

"Mrs. Schiavo's condition, I believe, has been at times misrepresented by the media," DeLay said on March 20. "Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort. Terri Schiavo is not on life-support."

E. J. is not content here with the usual journalistic cirumlocutions, he is willing to call the liars on their facts.

Right-to-life politicians have done terrible damage to a serious cause. They claimed to know what they did not, and could not, know. They were willing to imply, without proof, terrible things about a husband who was getting in their way. Instead of making the hard and morally challenging case for keeping Terri Schiavo on life support, they spun an emotional narrative that they thought would play well on cable TV and talk radio.

No, we should not move on. We should remember that some politicians will say whatever is necessary to advance their immediate purposes. Apologies, anyone?

And we should remember their names and what they said. E. J. Doesn't mention him, but let's not forget the part the President played in this drama, melodramatically flying back to the Capital to sign an unprecedented federal intrusion into this woman's trajedy.