EDITORIAL REACTION NATIONWIDE FOR SCHIAVO LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS

Today's Houston Chronicle: White House officials say the bill addresses only Schiavo's case. That is why it is improper in a federal system. It sets no national policy and offers no guidance in hundreds of other cases that similarly pose the question of how long medical science should sustain comatose or brain-dead patients. Contrary to White House statements, the bill does set a terrible precedent. President Bush and Congress now reserve the right to swoop down on any state at any time, even in the middle of the night, to assert federal power in an area previously reserved to the states.

Today's Rocky Mountain News (Denver): One of the few newspapers offering an opinion favouring reinsertion of the feeding tube.

Congress in our view does have the prerogative to intervene. After all, convicted murderer Scott Peterson will surely exhaust the federal appeals process in California to comply with the federal Constitution's requirement of due process before deprivation of life. Terri Schiavo's life is being taken from her on what appears to be a much lighter burden of proof.

The San Francisco Chronicle: THESE ARE some of the same politicians who talk so passionately about states' rights, a limited role for government, self-determination and the independence of the judiciary.

Those principles were nowhere in sight when Congress stepped into the Terri Schiavo case Sunday night.

The decision on whether Schiavo's life should be extended by an extraordinary medical effort simply does not belong in the hands of 535 House and Senate members.

Today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette: If the meddling lawmakers had wanted to take the high road, they would have left matters alone and left Terri Schiavo's fate in the hands of her husband, which is how the courts have ruled repeatedly. They would have taken the hint from the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that the legal battle has reached its proper end. And they would have resisted the selfish impulses to use the case for political gain.

But that would be too much to ask. So instead of wrestling the deficit or saving Social Security, Congress spent the weekend on a cause celebre involving one person whose case had already been addressed in court. Talk about a national tragedy.

The Omaha World-Herald (registered required): Certainly the courts are, as any human institution, fallible. We must trust nonetheless the professionalism of the doctor-witnesses and the integrity of the lawyers and judges. Without that trust, we are left with only raw power politics in a clash of unbending ideologies.

Which, unfortunately, is what we got when President Bush and a majority of the senators and representatives swooped in, snatched the case from the Florida courts and handed it over to the federal courts.

That is just a sampling. To view more, check out Mustang Bobby's Miami-based blog Bark Bark Woof Woof.