The governor of Florida is incapable of keeping his nose, and his lawyers, out of places where they don't belong.
I mean places where questions about the beginning and end of life are decided.
Since last spring, the state has been deep in the case of a mentally disabled woman from Orlando, known only as J.D.S., who was raped while in a group home. Bush wants a guardian appointed for the woman's fetus.
Now, Bush has spoken up about the dispute in Pinellas County over whether to remove the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo, who has been in a vegetative state for 13 years.
In a letter to the judge this week, Bush asked that a guardian be named to protect Schiavo's interests.
The governor should be congratulated for his consistency. He waves the pro-life banner into political combat each time, ignoring the real tragedies that struck J.D.S. and Schiavo. The cause comes first.
If he were really just worried about the rights of the fetus in the Orlando case, Bush would make sure the baby born was properly adopted. Then he would pack up and go home.
But the case will remain very much alive, and get argued in court after court, even after the baby's birth, because a scenario like this - a pregnant woman unable to make her own decisions - could repeat itself.
What a chance for the governor to chase the prize he's really after. He'd like nothing better than for a judge to declare a fetus a person with legal rights, including the right to have a guardian.
That would turn Florida law on its head. It would open the door to a flood of challenges to abortion and a woman's right to decide about the most private parts of her life.
One of the most offensive elements of Bush's position in the Orlando case is his opportunism. He has taken advantage of a woman attacked while unable to care for herself and turned her plight into a weapon with which to wage war on women. Politics is written all over it, as is the case with Schiavo.
In the Schiavo case, Bush asked Pinellas law enforcement officials this summer if they knew whether Schiavo had suffered criminal abuse, according to her husband's attorney. The answer came back no. Then Bush wrote his letter to Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Judge George Greer - even though as governor he has no more standing to affect the outcome of the Schiavo case than anybody else.
As for the governor's call for a guardian, Schiavo already has one who's quite legal - her husband, Michael Schiavo. He's just not the guardian Schiavo's parents want. He favors the removal of her feeding tube. They don't.
Schiavo's fate has been batted about for years upon years, with appeal after appeal, testimony from expert after expert, to the point of absurdity.
Some ending must come some time.
And soon.
Surely the governor knows that. Surely he knows his own remarks could make no difference, except perhaps to inflame emotions. Yet he decided to step in and pander.
That's a strong word, yes.
The governor has every right to his moral beliefs. I just mind when he expects me and everybody else who doesn't agree with him to swallow his thinking whole.
He's a leader. If he were acting like a leader, he would make sure J.D.S. lived out her years in the safest environment possible and close the door on her story. He'd stay out of the pathetic fight over Schiavo. He might even try - imagine this - to build bridges to his political opponents on these explosive, divisive issues over when life starts and how death should come.
Instead, Bush is using the plight of these two women who cannot speak for themselves for his own purposes. How moral is that?
If they could speak, what would J.D.S. and Terri Schiavo say?
And would the governor still be able to use them to further his own agenda?
- Correction: Danielle Cipriani was killed in her apartment in the Tampa neighborhood of West Shore Palms. In a column Tuesday, I gave the wrong neighborhood.
