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The cold embrace
A number of observers, both right and left, have concluded that the Terri Schiavo case was a watershed moment, a turning point of sorts in the national discourse.

On the right, they see it as the moment when the left's "culture of death" was seriously confronted for the first time. On the left, it's being hopefully viewed as the moment when the right finally jumped the shark and revealed their ugly, intrusive underside to the public at large.

It will take some time, of course, to ascertain which of these views is closer to the truth, though obviously I've already endorsed the latter wholly.

However, I think that we can defintively say that it was a watershed event in a gathering trend we've been observing for some time here: It clearly marked the open embrace of extremists by the mainstream Republican Party.

It was apparent that the "fight for Terri" attracted a large number of extremists to the cause, notably Bo Gritz and Hal Turner. But they were not as openly adopted by the supposedly mainstream conservatives who joined in the fray as the anti-abortion extremist Randall Terry.

Terry, of course, was everywhere: Popping up on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and various local networks as the chief spokesman for the Schindler family, who sought him out for support.

Numerous others have remarked on Terry's long career in anti-abortion radicalism, including Media Matters, Mark Kleiman, World O'Crap, and TalkLeft. Sean Baptiste has put together a six-part series on Terry that has even greater detail. ...

...Terry also has a thing about insisting on masculine leadership:

"The greatest crisis we face is not child killing, it's not the sodomites, it's not land tax, it's not the intrusion of the federal government into our lives, our families, as they crush our liberties. The greatest crisis we face tonight is a crisis of leadership. We are facing a crisis of righteous, courageous, physically oriented, male leadership. Male leadership!

"God established patriarchy when he established the world. God established a patriarchal world. If we're going to have true reformation in America, it is because men once again, if I may use a worn out expression, have righteous testosterone flowing through their veins. They are not afraid of the contempt of their contemporaries. They are not here to get along. They are not even here to take issue. They are here to take over!"...