The Hypocrisy is All on One Side

Kaus, purportedly channeling Tim Noah:

He said it: Only Slate ‘s Tim Noah, however, has had the balls to prematurely speculate about a partisan Schiavo do-si-do in which Tom DeLay suddenly realizes that ‘quality of life’ is what counts, while Democrats discover that maybe the Schiavo conservatives had a point. … Backfill: See also Ace of Spades:(“Johnson’s minor interaction with the world is enough to keep him in the Senate, but wasn’t enough to keep Terry Schiavo alive. … Democrats seem to have newfound respect for an occasional opening of the eyes.”)

Here’s the thing; just as progressives don’t insist that everyone should get an abortion, or that everyone should have a gay marriage, they didn’t argue in the Schiavo case that every vegetative patient should be disconnected from the feeding tube. Rather, they argued that Terri Schiavo’s legal guardian should have had the right to make that decision, which is pretty consistent with the argument that women should have control over their own bodies and that people should be able to decide who they want to marry. It would be hypocritical for Tom Delay to suggest Tim Johnson should be euthanized, but it wouldn’t be hypocritical for a Democrat to say that the decision should rest with the family.

This has been Simple Responses to Stupid Kausisms.