Oh the revisionism! Jeffrey Toobin writes that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor became appalled by supposed Republican “fanaticism” for passing the Terri Schiavo law that required a federal court to review the questionable state process that led to an order of death by dehydration. From his blog:

The story of the last decade or so of her life is the story of her increasing alienation from the modern Republican Party. The key moment for her was the Terri Schiavo case, in 2005, when the President and congressional Republicans mobilized overnight to intervene in the case of a Florida woman who was in a persistent vegetative state, and attempted to overrule her husband’s request to remove her feeding tubes.

The law wasn’t passed sua sponte, but at the request of Schiavo’s blood family. And the “husband” had a fiancé, with whom he had sired two children.

I am not trying to relitigate the Schiavo case. But facts are facts: If the Republicans were fanatics, so were the Democrats. Dem Senators gave unanimous consent to allowing the law to pass, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. If just one Democrat Senator had refused, the law couldn’t have passed. About 45% of the House Dems voted yes on the law. Indeed, the Schiavo law might have been the most bi-partisan law passed during the Bush years that did not involve the War on Terrorism. Toobin–and O’Connor–should get their facts straight.

Of course, it could just be that the Democrats were cowards and voted against their opinion for fear of public criticism, and then shifted later after polls were taken. But that would just make them fanatical pursuers of expedience.