NPR Host Asks If Sen. Johnson's Family 'Has The Right' To Ruin Dem Majority

Monday's first hour of National Public Radio's Diane Rehm show out of Washington focused on the health and political ramifications of Sen. Tim Johnson's brain surgery. Guests were Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Early in the show (about 7 and a half minutes in), Rehm grew a little crass, asking if Sen. Johnson's family could ruin the slender majority the Democrats hold in the upper chamber. Consider this through the lens of the Terri Schiavo debate, and see the liberal flip-flop coming:

Rehm: "What’s if Johnson’s family were to say ‘Tim Johnson can no longer serve’? Do they have the right to do that?"

Ornstein: "Uh, basically, no. I suppose you can imagine a set of circumstances under which he was in such awful condition, clearly deteriorating, moving towards death, where there might be a broader consensus in the Senate and in the society, but otherwise, no. It’s within his control. And again, we’ve had examples in the past where family members wanted to cut those ties, end the kind of torture, in a way, they were going through, but do not have the legal authority to do so."

Can you imagine the spectacle if the Johnson family wanted a certain course of care for Senator Johnson, and the Michael Schiavo Democrats were saying no, the guardians have no say? Didn't they want the Washington politicians out of the debate?