Great column by Dowd the other day. Criticizing the GOP for the many things wrong with the Schiavo case is getting to be too easy, but she still comes up with some choice comments. Example: "As the Bush White House desperately maneuvers in Iraq to prevent the new government from being run according to the dictates of religious fundamentalists, it desperately maneuvers here to pander to religious fundamentalists who want to dictate how the government should be run." Of course, Iraq simply has the wrong religion(s); if Christianity were popular there, oh you better believe GW, DeLay, and the rest would be pushing hard behind the scenes to make it a theocracy over there....

She points out that House Republican Chris Shays apparently still has a brain: "As Christopher Shays... put it: 'This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy.'" She also writes, "Dr. Frist thinks he can ace out Jeb Bush to be 44, even though he has become a laughingstock by trying to rediagnose Ms. Schiavo's condition by video. As one disgusted Times reader suggested in an e-mail: 'Americans ought to send Bill Frist their requests: 'Dear Dr. Frist: Please watch the enclosed video and tell us if that mole on my mother's cheek is cancer. Does she need surgery?'"

And more: "Republicans easily abandon their cherished principles of individual privacy and states' rights when their personal ambitions come into play. The first time they snatched a case out of a Florida state court to give to a federal court, it was Bush v. Gore. This time, it's Bush v. Constitution." In other words, selective beliefs translates into partisan posturing -- there's no conviction here. Recall that Bush and the "righteous" Sen. Santorum (PA) endorsed pro-choice Arlen Specter instead of the vigorously pro-life GOP candidate, Pat Toomey. What was that all about? Where was the "culture of life" then?