In case you haven’t heard, the autopsy results for Terri Schiavo are in. But, of course, the story is over now and none of the major press outlets wish to talk about it anymore. It’s typical, really. The mainstream conservative press likes to talk about all the barrels of “potential WMDs” found in Iraq, but then they don’t really want to use the space to print later that they were really full of pesticide for the farm on which they were found.

Getting back to Terri Schiavo, you might want to check out this story from WorldNetDaily, which is typical of the tales we heard from the political religious right, and talks about how the “horrible lie” perpetuated by Terri’s husband has had its desired effect —

Every time we turn on the television and hear the name Terri Schiavo, we are condescendingly reminded of her “persistent vegetative state.” Bob and Mary Schindler are blasted in newspaper opinion columns across the country for believing their daughter is still a human being capable of recovery and worthy of protection under the U.S. Constitution. All efforts to save her are in vain, the pundits tell us. She is beyond rehabilitation, beyond treatment and beyond hope.

All fine and good ? provided you ignore reality.

So just who was ignoring reality? We’ll see in a moment. Check out another quote from the article:

According to an account given by Barbara Weller, the real Terri Schiavo is entirely different from the image propagated by her estranged husband, the mainstream media and the “right-to-die” crowd. Weller recollects that Terri “was very purposeful and interactive” and appeared “very curious about the presence of obvious strangers” when she and Gibbs, accompanied by members from the Schindler family, first entered her room at the hospice.

“When her mother was close to her, Terri’s whole face lit up,” Weller continued. “She smiled. She looked directly at her mother and she made all sorts of happy sounds.

Let’s examine a couple statements in that last paragraph; “She looked directly at her mother,” “very curious about the presence of obvious strangers,” “When her mother was close to her, Terri’s whole face lit up.”

All these statements refer to Terri’s ability to see those in the room. Well, my friends, according to the official autopsy report released yesterday:

“Terri Schiavo was blind and half of her brain had been irreversibly destroyed when she died of dehydration on March 31, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday. ”No amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons,” said Pinellas-Pasco County Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin, who led the autopsy team.

Do we now have to have an argument discrediting the autopsy team?

And what about the allegations that Michael Schiavo had beat his wife? If you recall, several people advanced the theory that Terri’s husband had abused her, since a bone scan taken a year after Terri was hospitalized showed she had “suffered a fracture.” According to this article:

[The medical examiner] said the medical evidence supported neither of those conclusions. When Terri Schiavo was admitted to the hospital after her collapse and resuscitation, she underwent 33 tests, none of which revealed any fractures or trauma, he said. Likewise, he noted that the irregularities in the bone scan a year later were consistent with osteoporosis brought on by her prolonged immobility, a common problem in patients with paralysis.

I can understand the parents not being able to muster an apology to Mr. Schiavo, but what about all the politicians who were only tangentially involved in the case? What about Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, a former heart surgeon, who made his own diagnosis of Schiavo, disputing her own doctors, and claiming that “I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office. She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli.”

What about Tom DeLay, who claimed that “She talks and she laughs and she expresses likes and discomforts. It won’t take a miracle to help Terri Schiavo. It will only take the medical care and therapy that patients require.”

After Terri was allowed to die peacefully, DeLay also mentioned that “”Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior…”

Well, Mr. DeLay, I’m not going to get into your other “behavior” here, but if you truly believe people must answer for their behavior, don’t you think you owe some people, including the judges in this case, an apology? It certainly seems like they got the story right, and you and so many other right-wing zealots got it very, very wrong.