Turning Point

In an interview in Vanity Fair, several Bush aids are pointing at Hurricane Katrina as the turning point of the Bush administration (September of 2005). According to them, the American public lost faith in Bush during his botched response to the storm, and the President never regained the public's trust after that.

An interesting theory, but wrong. As I've said before, the big turning point actually came in the spring of 2005 during the Terry Schiavo case.

You may remember her as the woman in Florida who was in a vegetative state, and who's family became embroiled in a bitter battle over whether to disconnect her feeding tube. The then Republican Congress got involved and passed legislation seeking to keep her on the feeding tube. President Bush, in a dramatic gesture, hopped on Air Force One and flew from Texas to DC to sign the legislation. He did this even though he could just as well have signed the bill while at his ranch where he was vacationing at the time.

Americans in general were horrified by this exhibition of political opportunism. Many of us have had to deal with such decisions within our own families. It's an intensely personal and--yes--difficult choice to make. And while it was unfortunate that the Schiavo family could not arrive at a consensus on their own, the United States Congress and the President had absolutely no business getting involved.

It was during this tragic circus that most sensible Americans finally realized that the Republican party had gone too far in pandering to the lunatics of the religious right. It was also the moment that began the downfall of the Republican party and led to their eventual loss of both Congress and the White House.