Bush-Javert Continues Hunting

Unbelievably, (or believably, depending on your perception of Florida politics these days), Gov. Jeb Bush has decided to use the power of the state to continue hounding Michael Schiavo.

Now,  Bush wants some sort of "inquiry" made about Mr Schiavo’s wife’s collapse some fifteen years ago. He’s says he’s concerned about time-line discrepancies as to when exactly Mr Schiavo called the paramedics. 

Oh Yeah, "time line discrepancies."  Not bloody likely.

According to Bob Herbert of the New York Times, Gov. Bush wrote a letter to Bernie McCabe, the state attorney for Pinellas and Pasco Counties requesting an "inquiry". An "inquiry" is Gov. Bush’s polite term for a criminal investigation. There’s absolutely no evidence Mr Schiavo has committed any crime, but that’s apparently irrelevant to both Mr Bush and Mr McCabe.

Question is, why, after all the negative publicity about Jeb Bush’s handing of the Schiavo case, is he trying once more to intervene in Mr Schiavo’s life, using his now-deceased wife and the circumstances of her original illness as some sort of tool to keep this matter alive?

Well, could be that Jeb Bush, at the urging of the right-to-lifers, the Christian right, and Mrs Schiavo’s parents, wants to find some way of hanging the death of Terri Schiavo on Michael Schiavo. There’s little doubt they’re not happy campers these days. They lost in the courts big time and they lost on the local ME’s autopsy table.

But they don’t take defeat easily, so, they asked Gov. Bush to do something.

Which he was more than happy to do;--like Inspector Javert pursuing Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, he doesn’t give up easily either.

State attorney McCabe says he isn’t aware of any crime involving Mr Schiavo. So why is he agreeing to the governor’s request? It’s well-known that when an ambitious state attorney goes investigating, he does so for the purpose of gathering evidence of a crime. State attorneys do not make useless "inquiries." Evidence of a crime no matter how flimsy can be used as the basis of an indictment. Grand juries of course, indict at the drop of a hat. Which brings forth the very real possibility that Mr McCabe will attempt somehow or another to indict Michael Schiavo for some crime or another involving the treatment of his ex-wife.

Which will start the Schiavo circus going once more.

This is an injustice.

It should not be allowed to occur. Mr Schiavo has suffered enough and pursuing this matter, even under the guise of an "inquiry" is not pursuing justice, which is supposed to be the first duty of a public prosecutor.

State attorney McCabe’s business address is:

P.O. Box 5028
Clearwater, Florida
33758

If anyone wants to remind him of what his first duty happens to be.

Punditwalla--