Politicians Are Grandstanding about Terri Schindler Schiavo

In a related story, the wild bear does indeed defecate in the woods.

Actually, the politicians got something right for once

They passed a special-purpose bill instead of passing a poorly thought-out general-purpose bill in the heat of the moment. (This is almost as strange as a wild bear using a flush toilet.) General-purpose bills are apt to have unintended consequences. A bill intended to preserve somebody's right to life against hostile relatives might cause the Feds to intervene in a family quarrel in which a spoiled adolescent threatens suicide. A bill intended to ensure that the handicapped receive adequate care might cause the Bureau of Fashionable Ninnies to second guess doctors. (Conservatives who think such a bureaucracy won't be captured by the Left are fooling themselves.)

To give a concrete example of unintended consequences, Michael Schiavo was given the authority to refuse Terri's food by a bill that was probably intended to give terminal cancer patients the right to stop eating.