"I'm probably the most pro-life governor in modern times'' in Florida, President Bush's brother said hours before signing a bill Tuesday that allowed him to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted despite a series of court rulings and against the wishes of Schiavo's husband.
The Republican governor's extraordinary personal intervention in some very specific cases has raised suspicions that he is engaging in political grandstanding to please the religious right -- an important base for his brother during next year's White House race.
"It may very well be consistent with his religious beliefs, but why single out this particular case?'' asked Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political science professor. ``I assume there's some sense that there's some political benefit or that there's some political risk for doing nothing.''
A NYT editorial reads:
[T]he State Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush have mocked the courts' careful deliberations and embarked on a ghoulish medical journey by directing that her feeding resume. . . . The Florida courts approached the matter with the gravity it deserves. The key legal question, as the Supreme Court recognized in a landmark 1990 case, was whether Ms. Schiavo would want to be kept alive if her views could be known. The Florida courts found clear and convincing evidence that she would want the life-prolonging measures stopped.
The Florida Legislature, prodded by the religious right, hastily passed a law authorizing the governor to order the feeding of patients in a vegetative state who lacked living wills. Governor Bush signed the law, so six days after Ms. Schiavo had stopped getting food and water, she was again receiving fluids and nourishment yesterday.
The new law infringes the right to die that the Supreme Court recognized in 1990. The supporters of the new Florida law invoke society's interest in ensuring respect for life. But that interest does not equate with prolonging bodily functions as long as possible. True respect for life includes recognizing not just when it exists, but when it ceases to be meaningful. And, as the courts have correctly concluded, it means basing the ultimate decision on the wishes, as best they can be determined, of the individual whose life is at issue.
NO SURPRISE THERE - A voter-approved mandate making it harder to keep government records confidential gave vastly outnumbered Democrats rare leverage Thursday to try to appropriate tens of millions of dollars for their own priorities.
Democrats in the state House took advantage of the unexpected opportunity to load up a bill giving The Scripps Research Institute $310 million in state money with a few projects of their own -- only to squander their momentary advantage with a strategic blunder.