Lying down with Dogs

There's an old adage that Jeb Bush might be thinking about these days: "When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."

The neocon governor of Florida was riding high just a few months ago, enjoying an international spotlight as his brother's emissary to the tsunami ravaged areas of the southern Asia.  Now, however, Terri Schiavo has come back to separate the feeding tube from his political corpus.  Two years ago, Gov. Bush inserted himself into the affair, strong-arming the Florida state legislature into passing "Terri's Law" which kept Schiavo on life support despite her (purported) wishes.  Utterly unconstitutional (the equal protection clause), it nevertheless earned him accolades from his evangelical "base" and not just the nut-balls who send their ten-year-olds out to get arrested.  He held himself out as their champion, their savior, their god.  Once a god, always a god.  If he did before, why can't he now?

Just a week ago, the evangelicals were still firmly behind Gov. Bush--but how times do change!  Now, my father tells me that the editorials and the conversations in Florida have altered.  Bush's base seems to think that he could, with a stroke of the pen, save Schiavo's life.  They are so nuts that they believe Jeb Bush should break the law, kidnap Schiavo, and effectively end his political career by being impeached.  That was the position stated last evening by Randall Terry, rabid anti-abortionist, who has positioned himself in front of the cameras as the Schindler's spokeschristian.  With a base like that, a loyal opposition is superfluous.  Again, it shows how evangelicals place their faith in their own collective temporal powers above spiritual concerns.  The First Commandment might as well be written on toilet paper. 

As for Gov. Bush and the rest of the neocons, just two weeks ago Tom DeLay & Co. were meeting in emergency session to send the issue to the Federal Courts and mandate a result.  What do we hear from Capitol Hill now?  Crickets.  It metamorphosed from a win-win into a fiasco as the nation woke up to their reprehensible grandstanding hypocrisy.  Prez. Bush's numbers are down in the low 40s again.  Their movement has seen its heyday, and they have only their base and their base values to blame.