Columns: Power abused, democracy corrupted

By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist

The end justifies the means.

When you have enough power, you can tell the courts to get lost, you can overrule the self-government of an entire state, you can obliterate the rule of law.

It does not matter that Florida’s courts ruled that Terri Schiavo expressed the wish not to kept alive artificially. We are entitled to ignore court rulings.

Neither does it matter that the doctors say that her brain has largely turned to fluid. We may dismiss these facts with a wave of the hand, or a sound bite on CNN.

Congress knows all. The federal government knows all. The strutting Tom DeLay and the unctuous Bill Frist know more than all the judges and doctors combined.

They are cynically armed with their internal memo about how many votes they are going to get out of the Christians. Some members of Congress speechified without knowing how to pronounce Terri Schiavo’s name, or the most basic facts.

Tom DeLay’s conduct is odious. He represents everything bad about Congress. His principal pastime is raising large amounts of money from wicked people in return for hurting the public good. …

If you are cheering because Congress acted in the midnight hour to “save” Terri, be sure of what you are cheering for.

You are applauding a Congress for throwing out the rulings of the courts, throwing out the due process of the states, and substituting its own will. …

For the sake of headlines and self-righteousness, the U.S. Congress waited until the final seconds of a years-long, agonizing legal process to say that our law does not count. Many well-meaning people are cheering. And so one more tree falls.