The ghost of Terri Schiavo........

......continues to haunt the Republicans.

About two months ago I said the following:

It may turn out that in death Terri Schiavo played a part in saving the United States of America from the hypocritical theocrats led by Tom DeLay. Now that's a legacy.

The release of the autopsy yesterday continued the political damage of pandering to the Radical Christian Wingnuts. The big loser has to be Doctor Senator Bill Frist who at one time gained some stature as a physician. Not anymore:
March 19, 2005

WASHINGTON - Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a renowned heart surgeon before becoming Senate majority leader, went to the floor late Thursday night for the second time in 12 hours to argue that Florida doctors had erred in saying Terri Schiavo is in a "persistent vegetative state."

"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office," he said in a lengthy speech in which he quoted medical texts and standards. "She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."

June 15, 2005

Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin concluded that...her brain was about half of normal size when she died. ...

Thogmartin says her brain was "profoundly atrophied" - and that the damage was "irreversable." He also says, "The vision centers of her brain were dead" - meaning she was blind.

So this puts Frist the "Doctor" firmly in the quack and charlatans medical camp. At a time when Frist's hold on power was already slipping this can't help. He was trying to distance himself from the issue today.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon who had questioned Terri Schiavo's diagnosis during the intense national debate on whether to remove her feeding tube, said the autopsy documenting her severe brain damage brings "a very sad chapter to a close."

"She had devastating brain damage, and with that the chapter is closed," Frist said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Frist, R-Tenn., said he never made his own diagnosis but did argue there wasn't enough information about Schiavo's condition to justify allowing her husband to remove her feeding tube against her parents' wishes.

"I raised the question, 'Is she in a persistent vegetative state or not?' I never made the diagnosis, never said that she was not. I did say that certain tests should be performed to determine that before starving her to death," Frist said in the interview.

Tom DeLay, who needs the Radical Christians more then ever was also mum but that moronic wingnut Rick Santorum was not however:

"None whatsoever," said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., when asked whether he had second thoughts after autopsy results released Wednesday showed that Schiavo had been beyond hope of recovery. "Where a state court tries to take the life of somebody, there should be a federal review," said Santorum.

FOX news, which saw there viewership plummet after the Schiavo debacle, reported on the autopsy but did little editiorializing.

This once again puts the Republicans in the hot seat. How far can they distance themselves from the issue without losing the radical wingnuts they need to win.