Bush's Texas Hypocrisy

The President is taking fire from democrats and lefty bloggers over a bill he signed, when Governor of Texas, creating a procedure whereby physicians, with the concurrence of the hospital ethics committee, could terminate a patient's life support against the relatives' wishes.   This is supposed to be inconsistent with Bush's position on the Terri Schiavo case, and apparently makes Bush a big fat liar.  Jon Stewart at the Daily Show thinks the whole thing is a big joke, and the nutballs that think Stewart's is a real news show have their panties all bunched up (nothing unusual there).

But if the Texas bill was so inconsistent with the President's current "right to life" positions, why was his decision to sign the bill supported by "right to life" and religious groups:

In Texas, Bush's position also had the backing of the Texas Right-to-Life Association, whose national headquarters, along with other Christian conservatives that make up a key part of the Republican base, has taken up the fight to prolong Schiavo's life as a cause célèbre.

The answer is pretty obvious, to anyone who thinks about it for a moment (or who doesn't get his news from comedy shows).   The Texas bill Bush signed was better than the status quo, which allowed physicians to end life support without any procedural protections.  More importantly, at the time Texas had a democratic legislature, and it was the best bill Bush could get:

Burke Balch, director of the Powell Center for Medical Ethics at National Right-to-Life in Washington, said he represented the Texas chapter in more than two dozen negotiating sessions over the 1999 bill. He acknowledged that the legislation could allow a hospital to move to end a patient's life over the family's wishes but denied that was inconsistent with Bush's positions now, or his own group's as well.

"Does this mean that we or Governor Bush are hypocrites because we supported that law? The answer is, it was the best we could achieve at the time, better than the existing state of the law. ... But when we have the ability to change the law to be more protective, certainly we would do that," Balch said.

You can disagree with George Bush's politics, but does anyone think that he is really being insincere in his pro-life views?  But the dems just can't help themselves, it is as natural as breathing to avoid the merits of the argument and take cheap shots.

KLo has more, over at The Corner.