More Reason for a GOP Fracture?

By DHinMI

There's a good discussion going on in the comment thread to DemFromCT's piece from this morning on Bush's slide.  Folks are wondering if the contradictions between the various ideological wings of the GOP are starting to turn on each other over Iraq, Social Security, Schaivo, etc.  It's been widely reported that talk about a Republican triggering of the Nuclear Option titilates the wingers, but it scares the hell out of the GOP's business-oriented supporters.  Business doesn't want the Democrats to clog Congress by working to rule, they want the Republicans to work on the rules.  But winger appetites may have been so whetted by Bush's stealth campaign to the religious right that they may not settle for anything less than a maximal payback--religious right judges, escalated attacks on gay rights, subsidized child care, curricula changes and all kinds of demands floated by the religious right.  Of course, the most important of all their issues is the criminalization of abortion.

So, despite bringing in a fake medical ethicist affiliated with a "think tank" hostile to science in an attempt to change Terri Schaivo's diagnosis, the President's brother couldn't obstruct justice and keep Schaivo on a feeding tube, which prompted Steve Gilliard to wonder if the "ultras" would abandon Jeb Bush.  Unlike segregationists like Orval Faubus, Jeb didn't figuratively stand in the schoolhouse door and obstruct judicial orders in the name of progressive social change.  Now it's starting to look like he's loosing the the will to fight:

Florida dropped its fight on Tuesday to prevent a 13-year-old girl in state care from having an abortion

Weeks after it unsuccessfully tried to intervene in the bitter dispute over the fate of a brain-damaged woman, Terri Schiavo, the state's Department of Children & Families said it would not appeal a ruling from a Palm Beach state court allowing the teenager to have an abortion.

"There will be no further appeals and we will respectfully comply with the court's decision," DCF District Manager Marilyn Munoz said in a written statement.

It was not immediately known if the girl, who is 14 weeks pregnant, had had the abortion....

Florida's governor is Jeb Bush, President Bush's younger brother, who was active in trying to keep Schiavo alive and who has said he personally opposes abortion.

"It's a tragedy that a 13-year-old child would be in a vulnerable position where she could be made pregnant and it's a tragedy that her baby will be lost," Jeb Bush said on Tuesday. "There's no good news in this at all."

[...]

"The constitutional right belongs to the child, and it belongs to the child even if the parents object," said Mary Coombs, a family law professor at the University of Miami. "In this case, DCF didn't have any more right than the parents."

The DCF legal effort marked the second time in recent weeks the state welfare agency had tried to intervene in a high-profile case involving personal rights issues.

It petitioned the courts to take custody of Terri Schiavo, the subject of a controversial right-to-die case in which her parents fought for years against attempts by her husband to remove her feeding tube and allow her to die.

Critics condemned attempts by Jeb Bush to intervene in a family dispute in which courts had repeatedly ruled in favor of Schiavo's husband Michael, who said he was carrying out his wife's wishes. Terri Schiavo died on March 31.

In the abortion case, Palm Beach County Judge Ronald Alvarez, who temporarily blocked the abortion last week, ruled on Monday that the girl could have the procedure over the objections of the DCF, her guardian.

Mathew Staver, president of Orlando, Florida-based Liberty Counsel, a conservative advocacy group, said he was disappointed by the state's decision not to pursue appeals.

"A second opinion is clearly warranted in a case where life and death is at stake," he said. "An appellate court should look at whether or not the girl is mature enough to make a decision like this."

One has to wonder how long the religious right, who were cool toward George H.W. Bush but consider the born again George W. Bush "one of their own," will view George W. Bush as one of their own in light of his father's lack of fealty to the wingers and his brother's inability to deliver on two high profile interventions in two months.  Now there's a very good chance that George W. won'd be able to deliver on his most extreme judicial appointments.  One of the most powerful motivations of the religious right is a sense of victimization.  Will they soon conclude they were victimized politicians (like the Bush's) who couldn't or wouldn't deliver on the promises they made the religious right just to get their votes?

Comments

[DemFromCT]

This puts the mild rebuke to Dobsonites in Bush's press conference in a different light. CW is that Bush is 'one of them' and can do no wrong, so he can position himself with a wink and a nudge to look 'compassionate', all with impunity.

I'm not sure they're ready to put pressure on him like they are on Jeb. Guess we should call Randall Terry and ask. Who wants to volunteer?

[DHinMI]

You'd probably just get a busy signal, what with God tying up Randall Terry's line and all...

[Emocrat]

I wouldn't be so quick to see cracks in the Thug facade. The wingnuts are so completely blind they will always do what they are told. On the other hand, the corporatists have benefitted greatly from all the wingnuttery and therefore have no reason whatsoever to oppose their actions, no matter how vulgar.

It's the Schiavos and other psychotic melodramas that allow bills like the BK Abomination to pass without any mention in the press. Thus far, every new tax cut, every new pork bill, every new billion dollar giveaway is well covered over by those wackos. It's a marriage made in Hades.

[doghouse riley]

Robertson's the biggest of big businessmen among them, but then a couple days after the election Falwell was commanding the faithful to get back to church and leave their elected officials alone. The leadership is happy to play ball, but as Schiavo shows, the rank-and-file can get out of control.

You're right, there's a danger the radicals are finally going to wake up and realize they've traded money and votes for lip service all these years, another reason I think they see '08 as their best chance.