The true Schiavo legacy

There are two images that will unfortunately survive Terri Schiavo's tragic death:
The first is the Rev.Jesse Jackson and "Operation Rescue's" Randall Terry standing arm-in-arm where neither of them should have been.

The second is Rep. Tom DeLay's demonstration that he missed the 8th grade civics class where they taught kids about the separation of powers: The NYT reports:

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today," said Mr. DeLay, who was instrumental in pushing emergency legislation that gave the federal courts jurisdiction over Ms. Schiavo's care, only to see them decline to order her feeding tube restored. Saying that the courts "thumbed their nose at Congress and the president," Mr. DeLay, of Texas, suggested Congress was exploring responses and declined to rule out the possibility of Congressional impeachment of the judges involved.

While Pres. Bush panders to the "culture of life" (while killing more than 15,000 young Americans in Iraq) Michael Daly tells the real story, and it's the story of so many U.S. teens:

"In between binges, she attempted her own miracle diet. Her medical records would note, 'She apparently has been trying to keep her weight down with dieting by herself, drinking liquids most of the time during the day and drinking about 10-15 glasses of iced tea.'
"Then, she would rebel and binge and purge herself again, so often that her stomach lining was damaged. The enamel on the back of her teeth was eroded by gastric acids.
"Her bulimia nervosa became so severe that the purging deprived her heart of potassium. An executioner's lethal injection does the opposite, flooding the body with potassium, but the effect is the same. A cellular reaction known as the sodium potassium pump is disrupted and the heart can no longer beat.
"The paramedics got Terri Schiavo's heart thumping again, but not before she suffered irreversible brain damage. The video of her in a persistent vegetative state can be seen as a kind of an after-after picture."

That's the real story. It's one that the networks won't tell you. The next time you see an ad that focuses on weight as the hallmark of attractiveness: Think about Terri Schiavo. That will truly give meaning to her tragic death.