Here’s a development you might not have expected to see: the folks for whom George Bush and Jeb Bush put their political necks on the line now want to chop them off:
This new development swirling around a constituency that was being cared for and has angrily turned on its caretaker is related to the case of Terri Schiavo. USA Today reports this:
By Sunday, after nine days of legal defeats for Schiavo’s parents in their effort to have her feeding tube reattached, much of the optimism was gone. Last week’s unity among the demonstrators had splintered, and an undercurrent of anger ran through them.
Their ire was directed at Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband, who successfully petitioned the courts to have her feeding tube removed; at state judge George Greer, who has ruled consistently in his favor; and increasingly, at President Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“If Gov. Bush wants to be the man that his brother is, he needs to step up to the plate like President Bush did when the United Nations told him not to go into Iraq,” Randall Terry, a protest organizer, said of the governor. “Be a man. Put politics aside.”
Sharon Mull, who drove here from St. Augustine, said she had written three letters to the governor in the past few days. “It seems like he could have intervened more,” she said. “At this point, it’s getting too late to help this woman. She’s being tortured. She’s being murdered.”
Last Monday, President Bush signed an emergency bill from Congress enabling Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to have federal courts hear their appeal to restore her feeding tube. Gov. Bush asked state courts for permission to take custody of Schiavo. But the Schindlers have been turned down by every court, and the president and the governor have said they can do no more.
Among the messages on protest signs Sunday: “Barbara Bush: Are you proud of your sons now?” “Stop the American Holocaust!” “Send in the National Guard!”
Schiavo’s family members wisely tried to defuse such talk but just think about what these folks are asking: that court rulings be brushed aside and the state and/or national government impose their political wills by sending in state and federal troops. This doesn’t quite seem the America the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the constitution.
In purely political terms, there are clearly some things the Bushes can (and probably will) do.
The key one is to gently distance themselves enough from this faction, particularly if anger increases or there are any incidents of violence. Any political science student can cite instances where parties distanced themselves from a faction that was deemed to be extreme but stole their thunder by incorporating some of the faction’s demands. Incorporating does not mean the party loses its entire identify by pressing for those demands.
The bigger issue is the one of the GOP seriously making an effort to find and define its political center (which definitely should be a tad to the left of these demonstrators), dropping its anchor there then getting out the idea forcefully where it is. From a purely political and common sense standpoint, going after the Bushes will not win these folks brownie points — but accelerate the decline of their already disproportionate influence within their own party. And it’s clear their loss of clout will be unlamented by many within the Republican party itself.
UPDATE: Schiavo’s partents today are appealing for Jeb Bush to intervene and take custody of their daughter — in other words, to use his power and ignore court rulings with which he didn’t agree:
“Bob and Mary Schindler are begging Gov. Bush to step in and take custody of Terri,” said Father Paul O’Donnell, a Franciscan monk who is a spiritual adviser to the parents.
“We’re begging the governor to step in, to be a man of courage and to put an end to this barbaric practice that’s taking place in Florida,” he told reporters outside the Florida hospice where Schiavo is being cared for.
UPDATE II: To the people emailing us calling us an atheistic, far left site (neither are true as anyone with even an IQ of 1.5 knows) we’ll give you this take by James Joyner:
These people represent a lunatic fringe, so I doubt these sentiments are particularly widespread even among the small minority of Americans who think Terri Schiavo should be kept alive despite her wishes and those of her husband. Still, it serves the Bushes right for intervening in an affair outside the scope of their executive offices.
Amen.
UPDATE III: A Time Magazine poll shows the absolute repudiation of the Bush/DeLay action by the American people. Just look at this graphic (this MUST be another distorted poll that is all wrong…or so some people will email us…). Note that it also indicates some politicos may face some consequences at the polls.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.