Their unhappiness is  understandable.

The other day, the chief medical examiner for Pinellas and Pasco counties in Florida released the autopsy of Terri Schiavo. The CME said she died of dehydration. There was no evidence of any other trauma. She wasn’t aware of what was going on around her and would never have improved had she lived longer. Her brain had atrophied to half the size of a normal brain. She was blind.

Those are the facts.

And they were scientifically arrived at.

Science, not theology; not wishful thinking, not right-wing voodoo rhetoric, informed the public as to what Ms Schiavo’s condition was as the time of her death.

The CME’s report contradicts and puts to rest all the blathering clap-trap we had to put up with, during the Schiavo soap-opera. It contradicts ambitious GOP politicians, fundamentalist Protestant clergymen and meddlesome Catholic priests alike. 

It contradicts the anti-abortion nut-cases like Randall Terry, who attempted to put his two cents into the Schiavo alive.

That whole crew out-and-out  demanded that the federal government somehow or another intervene in a Mrs Schiavo's state guardianship proceeding. The more extreme elements demanded that the governor of Florida act contrary to what the courts ordered. They were convinced that Ms Schiavo was being murdered, that she was conscious, and that her husband was harming her and all the rest of it.  

But it all turned out to be a load of stuff and nonsense.

Well, three cheers for autopsies.

But this particular autopsy did something else.

It  exposed  Sen. Frist for what he is,  little more than an overly ambitious politico;--a man quite willing to misuse his professional skills as a physician , for the sole purpose of ingratiating himself with the far-right in anticipation for a presidential run in 2008.

As it stand now, most people are left wondering what sort of politician is he now and what sort of president would he be?

They are also asking the question as to what sort of physician he can be, if he is willing to pump out a diagnosis on someone without actually examining him/her. Sen. Frist, or Doctor Frist, as he likes to refer to himself,  came out on TV on the Senate floor and told everyone what Mrs Schiavo’s cognitive state was, on the basis of viewing a video, for God’s sake.

That  tape of Frist issuing his diagnosis survives.

You can bet  it'll aired if Sen. Frist goes ahead and enters the New Hampshire primary.

It'll receive a lot of airtime.