Democrats come out for puppies and rainbows, conservative watchdog groups send out the alarm

I'm with Scott: Please, right wing nuts, let's talk about Terri Schiavo. Even better if you can outdo yourself this time around and suggest that keeping a brain dead woman's body alive against her stated wishes is more important than keeping thousands of American troops and Iraqi citizens alive. My main objection to reviving this debacle is that it will prolong the suffering of Michael Schiavo, and if any man has suffered enough, it's him. Even though the hard right sees Terri Schiavo as the perfect woman, as if she was an overgrown fetus with her inability to speak or think, in reality she was, before her heart attack, exactly the sort of human being the hard right doesn't think has a right to really live---a thinking, breathing, feeling woman. Who probably had sex and liked it. Gasp! And we know from Michael Schiavo's testimony that she had opinions. She only got the love of the hard right when all that was gone, which is a point worth pondering. It's a real shame that she'll be remembered as a vegetable because of their hard work, and not so much as a woman with a real personality and life. Makes me shudder to think they'd do to the rest of us, if they had a shot.

Anyway, why bring this up? Because the wingnutteria is trying to make hay out of the fact that Obama is appointing Michael Schiavo's lawyer to the Department of Justice. Which is fucking stupid, because public opinion is mostly against the anti-choicers who want to meddle with your end of life decisions, especially if they can get the double whammy of screwing with someone's private romantic life at the same time. (I have very little doubt that making sure that they crippled Michael Schiavo's ability to move on with his life was part of the motivation of keeping Terri's body alive.) It's really unwise to remind the public time and time again that, for the right wing base, sticking your nose in other people's business for no other reason than to make their lives as bleak and miserable as possible is priority number one. It's clear that this entire strategy is part of the larger right wing "let's make hay over every little thing with hopes that something sticks" strategy that may actually be self-defeating.

For instance, why do they give a shit if Roland Burris does or doesn't get a seat? If you'd asked me a month ago that you'd have Pat Buchanan on TV lying his ass off in order to get a Democrat seated in the Senate, and a black man at that, I would have told you to lay off the PCP. It's nakedly cynical for Republicans to root for Burris, because it's clear that their thinking begins and ends with, "If the Senate Democrats want X, we must sell our daughters into slavery if that will prevent X from happening." They're ready to slide into the oppose-and-obstruct-at-all-costs mode.

I wonder if there's a way for congressional Democrats to get the Republicans to the point where they're grandstanding against bills that honor puppies and rainbows. Probably won't go that far---everyone congressperson worth her weight knows how to vote yes on a feel good bill, no matter how asinine. But surely there's a way to exploit this oppose-and-obstruct tendency that's clearly taken hold to the point where the wingnuts can't even see their own self-interest anymore. Ideas?