The Reason for Hillary's Terricentric Silence?

Maybe this is why the former first lady, junior senator from New York, and wannabe POTUS has gone to ground over the past ten days:

[I]n September 1993, while appearing before Congress to sell her ill-fated health care reform plan, Mrs. Clinton suggested that she wanted to make it easier to deny long term care to patients like Terri Schiavo who have little chance of recovery.

I think there should be a discussion in this country about what is appropriate care . . . with more thought and more concern about both the human and the economic cost," she told the Senate Finance Committee.

Referring to her own health care plan, Hillary explained:

"If we do this health care reform right [we can] create the kind of security we're talking about so that people will know that they're not being denied treatment for any reason other than it is not appropriate, it will not enhance or save the quality of life."

Mrs. Clinton hinted that she thought that even patients who were not necessarily terminally ill should be denied life-saving treatment - citing the case of a 92-year-old cardiac patient:

"The hospital administrator of a very large hospital came to me as a part of a group visiting, as a delegation brought in by the member of Congress," she told the Senate. "And he said that he had recently asked one of his cardiac surgeons why the cardiac surgeon had admitted a 92-year-old man for a quadruple bypass."

"And the cardiac surgeon had said, 'Well, because he was referred to me by the cardiologist who refers me all of my cases, and I didn't want to say no because he might send his cases to another cardiac surgeon.'

"And the hospital administrator said, 'Well, do you think it was medically appropriate for you to accept this surgery?' And he said, 'No, it wasn't appropriate or necessary, but that's the way the system works.'"

I think we can be confident that this is what Mrs. Clinton truly believes about euthanasia, and that she resides firmly and resoundingly in the snuffer camp. Just as she knows that she has to pick up at least four million "red"-state votes in 2008 if she is to reach the lifelong ambition for which she's put up with that hash-tooting lothario for the past thirty-five years, and that the former and the latter are not remotely compatible.

When Congress starts work on a bill to address the need to protect the rights of the disabled who are under guardianship, don't be surprised to see the dragon lady as one of its prominent co-sponsors, even as she contemplates ways around it once she's securely ensconced in the Oval Office.