Law and Order Republicans

So Terri Schiavo is dead. May she rest in peace, and may everyone who tried to profit off her suffering be disemboweled by a pack of rabid sewer rats.

The most interesting thing to come out of the Terri Schiavo case, which was ignored by just about everyone, was a quote published in Monday’s (March 28) USA Today from Randall Terry, identified as one of the protest organizers: “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…Be a man. Put Politics aside.”

Well, out of the mouths of crybabes…….

This is a beautiful statement on so many levels! The pure balls of it. The asinine naiveté. This is a conservative, one of those rabid Ed Meese types, always screaming about law and order, and now he wants the governor to break the law! The fact that he equates obeying the law with politics has a Marxist ring to it, and of course the whole thing smacks of Henry David Thoreau.

And why not? He’s absolutely right. The President of the United States violated all sorts of international law when he invaded Iraq: the Nuremburg Principals, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, the whole shebang, and he did it with a smile on his face and proclaimed it “The right thing to do.” We’ve got it from on hi now, from the President himself: if you don’t like the law, ignore the law. Wrap yourself in righteousness and commit the crime. The law is all politics anyway.

As if “right to life” isn’t.

I want to stress this: President Bush has now taught a whole generation of Americans that the law doesn’t matter: be a man, break the law, so long as you’re sure that God is on your side.

Wait a minute! Where have we heard that before? Could it be from the men who flew two airplanes into my favorite lunch spot and killed 3,000 of my fellow New Yorkers? They thought God was on their side too, and felt entirely justified in breaking the law. What’s the real difference? Kidnappings, unilateralism, torture, they claim not to use it themselves, and then, with a wink and a nod, send “contractors” to Abu Graihb, throw unconvicted suspects into their private dungeons at Guantanamo, and send people they want seriously tortured off to Saudi Arabia or Syria (our supposed foe—how does that one work exactly?) so they can torture them. And we justify it all by saying “well, this is a different kind of war.” Isn’t that what America was being told in the months leading up to the My Lai Massacre? This is law and order in Bush Country.

Las and order indeed! The pigs have been exposed. They should have kept their mouths shut on this Schiavo thing, because now their hypocrisies have been laid bare for all to see. Randall Terry is right. What is the difference between breaking the law to save Teri Schiavo and breaking the law to invade Iraq? A matter of scale is all. There was really no logical reason for Jeb Bush not to send in the Florida National Guard (unless they all happened to be over in Iraq, but then he’s got bigger problems). His brother’s example should have given him the justification—unless he really didn’t believe in Terri Schiavo’s right to life, and he was only shedding crocodile tears to score political points! Otherwise he should have acted. His brother did. Or is there something to this law thing after all?

No, that little swine, and his brother too, have come up against a logical road block. With his brother’s example Governor Bush should have gone in with guns blazing. But no: not only was the law against him but public opinion was against him too. Maybe it is all political: Terry Schiavo, Iraq, Everything. Maybe George Bush knew, Like Regan knew when he withdrew from the World Court (the day I swore I’d never vote for a Republican for president), that a little piracy on the high seas or international law breaking is good politics, and Jeb Bush knew that breaking domestic law was bad politics. But more then that. They both knew in a cold, calculating fashion that they could gain political points in fighting a battle over Teri Schiavo that they never intended to win, knew they could not win, but were able to pose an posture and look sensitive before bending us over and buggering us over social security. Jeb Bush could look like a compassionate conservative who none the less upheld the law, and thus lay the groundwork for his presidential run in 2008.

Meet the new boss………