Ad Nags and Not-George -- a match made in Hacklandia

James Wolcott does this a lot better and more articulately than me (oh, just go read him, you'll be much happier and will have spent a much more productive ten minutes).

Still here? Okay, I'll try.

The Times and their Johnny on the Hackspot, Adam Nagourney has a piece on Jeb Bush that is so sickeningly awful, so obviously ghosted by Bush's flaks, that it would literally stink up the already pretty foul NY Times "Washington" section. But -- BAD LANGUAGE ALERT -- it's not inside section A. It's on the FRONT FUCKING PAGE OF THE NEW YORK FUCKING TIMES!

In a Polarizing Case, Jeb Bush Cements His Political Stature

WASHINGTON, March 24 - Gov. Jeb Bush's last-minute intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, even after the president had ended his own effort to keep her alive, may have so far failed in a legal sense, but it has cemented the religious and social conservative credentials of a man whose political pedigree is huge and whose political future remains a subject of intense speculation.

Jeebus, this is at least the second "last-minute intervention" to reinsert Terri Schiavo's breathing tube. He did the same thing two years ago. Since that time he has done nothing for -- or, as the case may have it, against the poor woman or her family. He has not tried to arbitrate an agreement between Mr. Schiavo and his in-laws, nor suggested legislation that would address these types of difficult custody/right-to-life cases. He has simply waited, knowing that before too long, he'd get another chance at cementing his political visibility. He was using the poor woman in October 2003, and he's using her now.

Back to Hack Adam.

On one level, the Florida governor's emergence as the most prominent politician still fighting, despite a string of court and legislative defeats, to have a feeding tube reinserted in Ms. Schiavo was very much in keeping with someone who has repeatedly declared a deep religious faith.

I'd have to be a cynic to question the religious commitment of a politician from a Southern state who has "repeatedly declared a deep religious faith," wouldn't I? Or just a decent reporter?

Several associates noted that he had been devoutly religious longer than President Bush, and even critics said his efforts - prodding the Florida Legislature and the courts and defying much of the electorate - were rooted in a deep-seated opposition to abortion and euthanasia rather than in political positioning.

Yet inevitably, the events of recent days have fed the mystique of Mr. Bush as a reluctant inheritor of perhaps America's most famous dynasty since the Adams family two centuries ago.

"Several associates" would say that, now, wouldn't they Adam? And odd, isn't it, that Nagourney doesn't name any of those "critics" who are so moved by Jeb's deep pocketed...er...deep seated opposition to abortion? We'll have to take that one at face value. Ah, but the Dane-like references to the governor and his "mystique," reluctantly taking the mantle of power from his father and brother, would please the Bard himself. It's so moving, so somber, so monarchical.

"Mystique." Unbelievable. That fat piece of corrupt shit has a mystique, alright.

He has assumed a very high profile in this polarizing case just as Republicans are contemplating the void that will be left when President Bush begins his walk off the stage in two years or so. At a time when many of the most frequently mentioned possibilities to lead the party are moderates like John McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the governor now certainly has a place, if he wants it, as a prime contender in what is shaping up as a fight to represent a conservative wing that has proved increasingly dominant.

"He has strongly identified himself with the Christian conservative movement," said Matthew Corrigan, a political science professor at the University of North Florida. "If the Republican Party is looking for someone with good ties with the Christian conservative movement, he is the one who is going to have them."

IF the Republican Party is looking for someone with good ties with the Christian conservative movement? Good lord, man. Did I really read that in the New York Times? Today's Republican Party is looking to create a theocracy in this country. And what was that, "if he wants it," crap? This whole thing has the oily feel and sulfuric smell of Karl Rove.

"He's got no - as far as I know, and I really believe him - he's got no future political ambitions," said Cory Tilley, a longtime adviser. "And even if he did, he would be doing exactly what he is doing now. This is very clearly an issue that strikes at his core beliefs."

I guess making further cuts in Medicaid strikes his core beliefs as well. That's something he has control over when it comes to helping his state's "most vulnerable." But that might have meant raising taxes on its least vulnerable, and that, coincidentally, might not play well in a future Republican primary.

Anyway, Adam has some tough reportin' to do.

Some Democrats were skeptical, however.

"This is less about Terri Schiavo and more about shoring up the Republican base, and that's a shame," said Scott Maddox, who is departing as chairman of the Florida Democratic Party and is a potential candidate for governor. "Politics has to be in play here."

But that was just a moment of rational thought by our crack political reporter and analyst. Soon we're back to the comfortable realm of a puff piece for In Touch Weekly.

At times this week, it almost seemed as if the Bush brothers were working in tandem; the governor's decision to re-enter the case once the White House had dropped it in the face of repeated judicial rebuffs may have saved the president criticism from the right. (Paradoxically, the governor himself was pummeled Thursday by some conservative activists, who demanded that he have state authorities physically seize custody of Ms. Schiavo and reinsert the tube.)[emphasis, ya know, added]

It seemed that way, eh, Adam. You're a sharp cookie, remembering all of them accusations of election result-fixin' from oh, five years, back, or maybe this piece of back scratching from 2003.

But it just seemed that way. It would be unseemly to imply otherwise. Rove. Party of two. Rove.

"Jeb Bush is not doing this for political reasons, in my opinion," said Jim Kane, chief pollster for Florida Voter, a nonpartisan polling organization. "Jeb Bush is smart enough to know that he is not going to gain anything from this, and he's probably going to lose something."

Give me a goddamn break. Nagourney's piece is an obvious example of what he's going to gain, a free pass with the fundies come '08. Karl Rove believes Bush won a second term because of those people, and he knows the GOP needs a replacement who will make sure that the religious right gets to the polls on time, instead of staying at home, which they did when an earlier leading light of this "political dynasty" was running for reelection.

Jeb, George, Tom, and Bill may have overplayed their hand on this one. Blinded by the "mandate" of November '04 and confident of the fealty of "values" voters, they overreached into an area of personal life that the majority of Americans would prefer politicians stay out of. But just because they misread how the majority of Americans would feel, doesn't mean they've done this out of deeply held religious feeling or because they are -- and this is what Nagourney can't quite, quite come out and say -- "courageous." They did it to get another anchovy from the radical clerics. And with their sanctimony and pandering, they may just have unleashed something that's out of their control.

If I hadn't read this "report" in the print edition of the New York Times, I would have thought some rascal had hacked his or her way into www.nytimes.com and posted a spot on Adam Nagourney satire.