Schiavo Reminiscent Of DeLay's Father
On November 17, 1988, Charles DeLay and his brother Jerry were in a tragic accident while tinkering with a backyard tram. Charles was thrown head-first into a tree.
As he tried to speak on the way to the hospital nothing coherent came out. "He wasn't making any sense; it was mainly just cuss words," recalled his wife Maxine. His medical records show that he arrived at the hospital with multiple broken ribs and brain hemorrhaging.
Over the next 27 days his condition deteriorated and the family decided that they didn't want their patriarch to "be a vegetable." They prayed and together with the agreement of her son, The Honorable Tom DeLay, Maxine decided to allow her husband to die.
The Los Angeles Times report that uncovered this story is one of many examples of blatant hypocrisy and cynicism on the part of politicians in the prolonged case of Terri Schiavo. The roles of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist are particularly appalling.
Two weeks ago, Bill Frist, MD, proclaimed on the Senate floor that Shiavo's feeding tube should not be removed "based on footage" he'd seen. Frist said that based on the videotape of Schiavo and court records, she "does respond" to outside stimuli. "That footage, to me, depicted something very different than persistent vegetative state." Another doctor, Howard Dean, accused Frist of grandstanding.
It was not until last week that we learned the real history of Frist's plug pulling. The New York Daily News reported that Frist's office admitted that back in his days as a heart surgeon he allowed patients to die on a "regular basis." While he claims that Schiavo is not "brain dead" like his patients were, it is hard to forget that he is willing to make a medical opinion in this case based on a video tape.
Based on this reputation I would get up an leave if Dr. Frist walked into my operating room.
With the latest revelations in the LA Times, Rep. DeLay has joined Sen. Frist as a bona-fide hypocrite on this issue. Although one cannot help but have human sympathy for suffering endured by the DeLay family, Rep. DeLay exposed his family to scrutiny with his arrogant position on this issue.
Where was his fiery rhetoric when he joined his family to quietly watch his father pass away? Where was his passion for tort reform when his family sued the manufacturer of the product that caused the accident?
Who is this guy?
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