Jeb Bush, Joe McCarthy and witch burning

I first talked about Jeb Bush's shocking (and seemingly idiotic) attempt to keep the Terri Schiavo story alive here, further commented on it here and compared it to witch burning here. This morning Bob Herbert compares Jeb Bush's actions to those of that 20th century witch burner, Joe McCarthy.

"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" asked Joseph Welch in his famous confrontation with the pathologically cruel Joe McCarthy. "Have you left no sense of decency?"

More than a half-century later, I would ask the same question of Florida's governor, Jeb Bush.

In an abuse of power that has been widely denounced, and has even appalled many of his own supporters in the Republican Party, Governor Bush has tried to keep the Terri Schiavo circus alive by sending state prosecutors on a witch hunt against her husband, Michael.

The state attorney who has been pushed by the governor into pursuing this case told me yesterday he has seen nothing to indicate that a crime was committed. Nevertheless, the inquiry continues.

Governor Bush asked Bernie McCabe, the state attorney for Pinellas County, to "take a fresh look" at this already exhaustively investigated case to determine, among other things, whether Michael Schiavo had perhaps waited too long to call for help after discovering that his wife had collapsed early one morning 15 years ago.

A comparison of the actions of Joe McCarthy and Jeb Bush to the witch burnings of the 16th and 17th centuries is a valid one. The authorities who allowed and condoned witch burnings knew full well there was no such thing as a witch. They encouraged those activities to take advantage of the fear, ignorance and prejudices of the population. If the population was attacking witches they had less time to think about attacking authority. Joe McCarthy went on a witch hunt in an attempt to gain political power, the same can be said for Jeb Bush. For McCarthy it only resulted in eventual censure and humiliation. I see a similar fate ahead for Jeb Bush.