Choosing the Wrong Spokesman

I like Glenn Reynolds post on one of the major problems in the Schiavo debate - the public face of each side. On one side you have George Felos, a ghoulish lawyer clearly in love with the idea of death, and on the other Randall Terry, former leader of Operation Rescue and a guy whose motivations I seriously question. Reynolds sums it up this way:

I'VE BEEN FOLLOWING THE DEBATE between Jeff Jarvis and Hugh Hewitt on the role of "theocrats" in the Terri Schiavo matter.

Hugh's right that it's hard to ascribe the Congressional legislation to "theocrats" when it was supported by Tom Harkin (and Ralph Nader!). There's much more going on than that; this is a matter on which all sorts of people, of all sorts of persuasions, can be found on both sides.

On the other hand, here's some advice, very similar to advice I gave to the antiwar movement: If you don't want to be confused with a movement led by theocrats, don't let actual theocrats be seen as your spokesmen. It may be impossible to shut Randall Terry up -- though if I were Karl Rove, I would have tried really hard -- but he needs to be loudly and regularly denounced as a nut. Otherwise you're in the same boat as lefties who don't want to be identified with Ward Churchill, but happily use him when they want to draw a crowd.

(In fact, the Terry / Churchill axis is surprisingly close -- they both view 9/11 as a necessary chastisement for a sinful America. If that's not a distinguishing mark of full-bore idiotarianism, I don't know what is).

Terry's getting what he wants from this: Attention, and a measure of undeserved legitimacy. But Bush seems to have fallen into a no-win situation. The Terryesque nuts on the far-right are mad at him for not standing in the hospice door a la George Wallace, while lots of other people see Randall Terry speaking, and George W. Bush rushing to sign the Schiavo bill, and associate the two. That may be unfair, but it's inevitable, and I think it may turn out to be costly.

As Rich Lowry wrote about Randall Terry: "I'm guessing that everytime he opens his mouth on TV support for keeping Terri Schiavo alive drops another couple of points." I don't think he's doing much for Bush, either. As I said about the antiwar people, you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Randall Terry's a dog.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get someone out front whose reputation doesn't automatically delegitimize our side of the argument?