Jeb Bush Wimping Out in Schiavo Case?

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday that his legal team has been unable to find a basis for him to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, who is expected to starve to death as soon as this weekend after her feeding tube was removed Wednesday at the direction of her husband.

"The legal office has been talking to people trying to find some strategy where my office can intervene in a different fashion that will yield a different result," Bush said Thursday. "So far we have not found that option."

Gov. Bush's comments came before Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, met with him privately to present a letter from Florida's Thomas More Law Center citing a legal basis for the state to intervene to stop what one attorney described as "the execution of Terri Schiavo."

"We're waiting to hear from Gov. Bush" on the Thomas More letter, Mr. Schindler told national talk radio host Sean Hannity Thursday afternoon. Schindler said Gov. Bush's response "probably is our last hope."

By Friday morning, Bush's office gave no hint that he had reached a decision. Thursday night, Mr. Schindler told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" that his daughter could die as early as this weekend if medical staff begin administering morphine to counter the pain of her starvation.

The Republican governor's caution over the legal technicalities of the case stands in marked contrast to the actions of Democrats, who often take a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach when an issue of importance hangs in the balance.

In April 2000, for instance, the Clinton administration didn't let the law interfere with its plan to return 6-year-old boat boy Elian Gonzalez to Castro's Cuba. Instead of waiting for Gonzalez's legal case to play out in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Attorney General Janet Reno executed White House plans to have the boy kidnapped from the home of his Miami relatives at machine-gun point.

Normally Clinton-friendly legal powerhouse attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe were horrified, publicly condemning the raid as unconstitutional.

Gov. Bush's reaction? He called the action "unconscionable" but showed no interest in pursuing legal sanctions against the White House.

When Republicans in Congress called for a congressional investigation into the Clinton administration's abuse of power in the Elian case, top aides to then-presidential candidate George Bush derailed the idea.

"A top Republican Party official told The Daily News that Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh informed Senate Republicans on Thursday that the candidate wanted the hearings scrapped because the issue is a political loser," reported the New York paper a week after the raid.

As it turned out, voter backlash over the Elian raid among Florida's Cuban-American community gave President Bush his razor-thin margin of victory in the 2000 election.

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