As you may have already heard, the federal judge that Congress forced into the Terri Schiavo case has dismissed the Schindler family's case, after a hearing in which Judge James Whittemore made it clear the Schindlers had no arguments that hadn't been heard repeatedly during the previous seven years of litigation.

The Schindlers, of course, will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but the odds of a reversal there are slim, and I strongly doubt the U.S. Supreme Court will want to get into this one. So the question will remain: having framed the Schiavo case as "murder" and "barbarism" and "medical terrorism," does Tom DeLay now just say, "Well, the family had its day in court," and forget about it? Or will the culture-war implications of the case make it escalate?

Guess you can tell which way I think the wind will blow.