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Good for the Goose, Good for the GovernorBy Rick Horowitz
"The unanswered questions may be unanswerable, but the attempt should be made." Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, still trying to get political mileage out of Terri Schiavo Just so you know: I hereby call on state prosecutors in Leon County, Fla., to open a new investigation into past drug use by Gov. Jeb Bush's daughter, Noelle. It wasn't an easy decision, but I didn't see that I had any choice. You remember Noelle, don't you? She was arrested in Tallahassee early one morning back in January of 2002, and charged with trying to fill a fake prescription for the tranquilizer Xanax at a local Walgreen's. She was ordered into a drug rehabilitation program, and was even sent to jail twice when she violated rehab rules: three days in July 2002 for being caught with prescription pills, and ten days in October of 2002 for a rock of crack cocaine reportedly found in her shoe. She finished rehab in August of 2003. So why am I bringing all this up now? Because I think we need to dig deeper. I think we need to take a fresh look at the case. I'm sure there are plenty of unanswered questions about exactly what Noelle Bush was doing the night she was arrested, and exactly when and where and why she was doing it. I'm sure there are plenty of other unanswered questions, too; I just haven't figured out what they are yet. But I know I haven't heard satisfactory answers to every last one of them. And the only way to get those answers is to keep digging -- no matter how long it takes, or how many lives it disrupts. Under most circumstances, I probably wouldn't try to get a prosecutor involved in dredging up the past just to satisfy my own curiosity; these are very busy people. At least I thought they were. Apparently not. Apparently they're just sitting around waiting for something to do. Apparently everything else in Florida is running so smoothly, so perfectly, that prosecutors have all sorts of free time on their hands. So if somebody (the governor, for instance) asks them to divert a few dozen man-hours of investigative effort from the people's business to some pet personal project -- "without any preconceptions as to the outcome," of course -- all they can say is, "When do we start?" Isn't that convenient? So I figured I'd try it, too. It can't hurt to ask. Well, I guess it could. Some people probably think that the Bush family -- Jeb and his wife, Columba, and Noelle, and even Noelle's brothers, George and Jeb Jr. -- have already been through more than enough. That they deserve a chance to put this whole terrible experience behind them. To heal their wounds in private instead of having their ordeal dragged into the public eye yet again. I can understand that. In fact, that's exactly the way I was thinking when that autopsy report on Terri Schiavo came out the other day: Enough already. Let it rest. Of course, some other people saw it totally differently. These other people (the governor, for instance) weren't the slightest bit interested in letting the autopsy report be the final word. They didn't like what the report said, and they didn't like what it didn't say; it wasn't hard enough on Terri Schiavo's husband to suit them. So they found a new way to keep things boiling: They decided to investigate the husband. I can understand that. If the goal is to keep things boiling. Of course, some people probably think that anyone who would latch onto such a tragic case and refuse to let go is a panderer, a schemer, or a political opportunist. I disagree. Anyone who would latch onto such a tragic case and refuse to let go is a panderer, a schemer, and a political opportunist! Not that I have any preconceptions. So let the investigations begin. Both investigations. Sorry, Noelle. Posted 6/21/05. Stay
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Rick Horowitz
