Jeb Bush involves himself in a family matter that is none of his business. President Bush makes an emergency flight back to the White House to sign legislation to further interfere in a personal family decision. Taxpayers footed the bill for that little venture. I didn't sign on to pay for government interference in family decisions. Neither do I help pay for congressional salaries for that same purpose. I don't know if Jeb Bush really has any intention of further political service, but I hope no one forgets his behavior in this travesty should he try. I know I won't.  And I hope others remember Bill Frist's and Tom DeLay's involvement as well. I never did like either of those guys. My respect meter on them has taken a huge nosedive.

I'm starting to pay more attention to people like Barney Frank and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Good God, I actually agreed with Ted Kennedy on this issue. This is NOT supposed to happen. I'm beginning to view what I once saw as media bias as merely trying to get a word in edgewise and stick to the facts where interviews with wingers are concerned.

In addition to all of this there is the cowardly wilting away of that once strong winger support. I don't know if the polls have swayed them or if they finally see how little of what the Schindlers say has any kinship to truth. I still run across strong blogger support for the position that Terri Schiavo is being murdered, but the Congressional wingers have backed off so much of that.

No so the pundits. Pat Buchanan, with whom I often agree, is sounding like Jerry Falwell who is lapsing into Robert Schuller. I expect that from Jerry Falwell and Robert Schuller; I don't like it coming from Pat Buchannan.

And of all people, now Jesse Jackson has jumped into the fray. Shouldn't little alarm bells be jangling like millions of activated smoke detectors gone berzerk when Jesse Jackson shows up to say the Shindlers called HIM and asked HIM for HIS advice, counsel, and ohhhh my God, HIS presence? Now, it's clear that Jesse is hedging the truth on this because he's talking like he's tripled the mush in his mouth so no one REALLY knows what he's saying. But it sounded an awful lot like the Schindlers need Jesse by their side. Puhleeeeeeze.

The thing is, this will not end when Terri Schiavo dies. The Shindlers have no intention of stopping their crusade, and they've made that perfectly clear by protesting the arrangements Michael Schiavo has made for his wife upon her death. I have a feeling we'll be seeing even more of that odious Brother Paul O'Donnell and Rev Pat Mahoney. Which means some other winger is going to have to crawl out of the woodwork to talk about more religious issues. It's enough to make a Conservative-On-The-Edge weep in frustration.

It seems to me that the one person who has the best advice to offer all these people is Ferris Bueller. Before Tracy Ullman, I believe it was Ferris Bueller who said, "Go Home." And wouldn't you know...  I think Ferris would have been termed a fibbie too!

All of this surrounds Terri Schiavo's death, and there's nothing much we can do about it except wash. I'm very very clean these days.

Gary Condit has already had one session with Dunne's lawyers for a deposition in which he refused to answer certain questions posed to him by Dunne's attorneys. There is to be another session for Condit to be deposed, and this time he's under orders from the judge in the case to answer all questions.

The questions Condit does not want to answer concern whether or not he had a sexual relationship with Chandra Levy. All he admits to is that they were friends.

Now, that might fly were it not for the fact that the media built a circus around Chandra Levy's disappearance.  Levy's parents held press conferences in which they outlined how Gary Condit lied about his involvement with their daughter. Levy's aunt did interviews in which she talked about information Levy had given her about Chandra's relationship with Condit. It was not platonic nor was it purely based on friendship.

And then there was the matter of his affair with Anne Marie Smith. He denied that too, but he lied. And the media was right there to capture it all. Some of us may need to bone up a little on all those past facts, but the truth remains that Gary Condit looked guilty as hell of something, and the reason he looked that way was because of the way he handled himself. He would have been better off letting it rest. But no, he wants to sue and receive damages from Dominick Dunne who writes for Vanity Fair.

Here's where the yellow streak enters stage left.  (It has to be stage left because Condit is a liberal and everyone knows they're never right.)

Gary Condit apparently wants to take his case to the people. He wants to get his side of the story out there in advance of any more publication of his personal business. HOWEVER, is he doing this himself? Hah! Noooooo. Instead he's sending his daughter, Cadee Condit out to speak for him. Last night Cadee Condit appeared with Greta Van Susteren, and Cadee made a fool of herself... Big Time.

If Cadee had been allowed to simply give her version of the story and then get off the set to allow other lawyers to discuss what she'd said, it might not have been so bad. But Cadee stayed on after her interview part of the show was over, and she took on Greta's panel of lawyers. One of these lawyers was Georffrey Fieger, another was Ted Williams, and there were at least two others whose names I don't remember.  It so happens that Ted Williams is a lawyer, but he's also a former police detective for the Washington, DC police department, and Fox News brought him in during the beginning of the Levy case to discuss both police department procedure as well as the law.

Last night Cadee Condit thought she was going to take on both those men as well as two other savvy lawyers in defense of her father.  It was a disaster.

I thought all the lawyers, particularly Fieger who is not always known to be the most courteous person on the planet, handled Cadee Condit with kid gloves in an effort not to offend or insult her. It was clear from the outset she had no intention of showing an ounce of respect to any of the lawyers on the panel. Even Ted Williams, who goes out of his way to placate everyone with whom he may even slightly disagree, was getting somewhat rattled by Condit's attitude.

The thing is, attitude was all she brought to the table. Cadee Condit seemed to think if someone said something she didn't like, all she had to do to refute it was talk louder and longer than the others. She ended up sounding like a screeching harpie more than once. And when it came right down to facts, she lost the battle every time.  She fought all the same old talking points with the same arguments that didn't work the first time around when Chandra Levy first went missing.

When some adult is hellbent on making a fool of herself, I say sit back and let her have at it. But in this case it occurred to me that it should have been Gary Condit making his own case and taking his own heat. What kind of man sends his child out to fight his battles for him, particularly when his child either naievely or calculatedly will have to do some considerable spinning about Daddy's peccadilloes.

The Washington, DC police say that Gary Condit is not a suspect in Chandra Levy's murder, and it may very well be that Condit had absolutely nothing to do with it. But no one will ever convince me that he is an honorable man who did anything to help Levy's family or the police as much as he could have when she first went missing.  I didn't think too much of the man during the time the Chandra Levy story had so much attention. After seeing what he allowed his daughter to do in his place last night, I think even less of him now.

Apparently the answer to that depends upon what state the eavesdropping takes place.  Recently Washington State decided that parents do not have the right to eavesdrop on their children's telephone calls because it violates the child's right to privacy.

I think the state of Washington has lost its collective mind.

I have two children. The older one was born to test the patience of Job, Mother Teresa, and any Saint that comes to mind.  I had this feeling that if given the opportunity she'd lie about her own name if it would benefit her in some way. Sure enough, I found out at one point that she had, in fact, lied about her own name. And mine. And her father's. Well, that kind of depends upon which father she was talking about at the time. She invented several of them. I wasn't old enough to have done everything she attributed to me by the time she was in high school. She hasn't changed much since. You get the picture.