Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

"But that's the miasma of the Bush administration -- Bush is a killer, he has the record for state executions, yet his administration dares to make an issue about Schiavo."

That's all I'm saying -- that the hypocrisy of the politicians involved is enough to choke a thinking person who's looking for a consistency between words and actions in our nation's leaders.

Personally, I'm totally on board with "rather spare a hundred guilty persons, than let one innocent person suffer the death penalty," and since human courts are fallible and we can never be 100 percent certain of the guilt of every person convicted, we'd better not do anything we don't have the power to undo.

That said, I'm also on board with the "right to die in peace" thing, and where no living will exists, and those closest to the dying person disagree about what she would want, it's a big tragic mess, and I hope never to have to make these choices for anyone else, ever.

But when pro-death penalty politicians try to portray themselves as "right to life" and champions of erring on the side of mercy, I have to stand up and say "Enough!"

I have to ask why none of these elected officials have shown anything like this degree of concern for the "right to life" of people (and especially children) without adequate health care or those serving in the armed forces without adequate armor, and other matters that are just as serious as Terri Schiavo's case, but are undeniably the politicians' responsibility and charge. They should first pull the log out of their own eye, before they try to pick the mote out of the judicial system's eye, over this matter.