VIGILANCE REQUIRED IN AFTER-SCHIAVO CLIMATE

My friends at the Tallahassee Democrat are right:

It is naive to assume that this political danger receded when Ms. Schiavo was finally permitted to rest in peace after 15 years. Zealotry knows no bounds. It is foolhardy to think that the closing of this chapter means the end of the book in the increasingly rancorous debate over government's role in the lives of Americans between the time of conception and burial.

One need only to listen to the bloviations last week of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, took top honors for hyperventilating hypocrisy.

In a thinly veiled threat aimed at an independent judiciary, Mr. DeLay vowed: "The legal system did not protect people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Never mind that a fundamental conservative principle is the limited power of government, especially in areas usually reserved to states and families. And never mind that the judge whose rulings were central to the outcome of the Schiavo case - Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer - is a conservative Republican.
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Big Brother is in the wings. Public vigilance and political courage are required to keep him from taking center stage.