I was braced for a flood of e-mails calling me an inhuman monster for not

being on board with my colleagues in re Terri Schiavo (or Schindler, as the

more politically correct among you would prefer — Hillary Clinton must be

smiling somewhere).

There have been a couple like that, but I am finding a lot of agreement,

too.

Hyperventilating about the inalienable right to life of everybody under all

circumstances strikes me as silly. Anyone who has mixed much with medical

professionals knows that “soft” euthanasia — letting hopeless cases die,

often with a gentle push to help them on their way — was everyday practice,

at least until the tort bar became the nation’s Fifth Estate. Jonah

Goldberg wrote something eminently sensible about this in a column a couple

of years ago. And, to be blunt, I am all for it, and hope someone will do

me that favor if the awful time comes.

Whether Terri Schiavo’s case properly comes under that scope, I still don’t

know. I took no interest in it until this weekend, and am reading up. I

would appreciate it, though, if some of you out there would get a grip on

yourselves and tone down the hysteria.