Responding To Visual Stimuli

I was planning to do a rundown of all the corrections and apologies from the Right's star Schiavobloggers. The research took a little time. The list doesn't take any at all.

Michelle Malkin managed to note yesterday that the Schiavo autopsy results would be released the next day, following what she called "a long and unexplained delay". Nationally syndicated talk show host Hugh Hewitt, and the Bloggers of the Year at Powerline don't seem to have gotten the news yet. The guy who claimed that Michael Schiavo's motive for killing his wife was the big bucks he'll be making for book and movie rights wants to argue about the WaPo lead, because it quotes the pathologist without containing any quotes, so we can't know if it contained "some sort of 'condensation'". It is, of course, too early to expect Bill Frist to offer his informed medical opinion.

Then there was the gang at the Corner. I actually went there following the Good Roger Ailes' link to this Jonah Goldberg howler: "He can solve pie to the 8 billionth place..." Believe it or not, this came as Jonah arrived late to a discussion of the Holodeck. This from a man who says:

But I don't think one can glibly say that just because the book was scientifically correct (speaking broadly, we've discovered lots of new things since then) and pioneering, doesn't mean it can't also be harmful. Darwinism certainly led to many horrors and abuses across the ideological spectrum, often through misapplication

though it had nothing whatever to do with the Indiana state legislature attempting to define pie as "a circular, fruit-filled pastry equal to 3.2" I just love the "we've discovered" there. Like he was holding Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould's lab coats for them.

I bring up The Corner Kids because John "Let's Kill Chelsea Clinton" Derbyshire wondered why, if supposed questions about Terri's persistent vegetative state no longer drive the argument now that it's been established, it was ever brought up in the first place. It seems very odd to me that someone like the Derb can spend so much time with those folks and still be unaware of their thought processes. But I guess the Schiavo case brought out a lot of that, sort of like all those folks who were shocked by Bush's kowtowing to the money interests on Social Security.

And the real fun came from checking the archives. There's Andrew McCarthy in NRO:

Notwithstanding the Post ’s insistence, it is not clear that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state (merely watching the video footage strongly suggests otherwise, and even the Post ’s editorial does not endeavor to defend the manifestly inadequate medical examinations that purport to underpin the PVS diagnosis)

Or the various icons from Powerline:

the political ramifications for the Democrats, should they use their political power to ensure her starvation, would be devastating.

and

Predictably, mainstream news outlets are trying to defuse the video's impact. Like this Reuters report: "Schiavo Videotape Misleading, Experts Say" :
Studies of people whose cerebral cortices are damaged in the way Schiavo's is show that their eyes will respond to stimuli such as movement or a human face, but there is no way for them to be conscious of what they are seeing.

Still, every time I wade through this stuff I get increased admiration for s.z. and TBogg, who make it a daily diet and still thrive.

And speaking of admiration, Majikthise takes down Joan Didion, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it was she who first brought the facts of the case to my attention, while it was still under the radar.