What's surprising isn't that some people on the right are making these arguments, but that so many are not. One of the defining characteristics of conservatism, I thought, was a belief that one didn't know all the answers. And what about all that talk of federalism and limited government? The gist of the complaint here is that Florida has a bad law, and that Terri Schiavo made a bad marriage, neither of which are normally seen as grounds for congressional action. As Sensing suggests, notoriety seems to be playing a bigger role than morality, much less constitutionality.

Even if it's constitutional for Congress to act on individual cases when it doesn't like the outcome in state courts (itself a matter of some debate), it's hardly principled. As Donald Sensing points out, this is the sort of question that state law, and state courts, are supposed to deal with. If Congress thinks that states in general are dealing badly with these kinds of questions in a way that endangers federal constitutional rights, it is empowered to pass general legislation under the 14th Amendment. But deciding individual cases isn't something that Congress is supposed to do, and it's rather shocking to find so many "small government" Republicans supporting it.

I don't agree with Andrew Sullivan's claim that the Schiavo legislation can be blamed on "religious zealotry" -- after all, as Tom Maguire has noted, both Ralph Nader and Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin were big supporters of the bill. But it's certainly action that flies in the face of traditional conservative notions about limits to government authority, and political competence. For Tom Harkin and Ralph Nader to back expanded federal authority isn't hypocrisy. For Tom DeLay to do so, is.

The dissent on the right -- and most of the critics quoted above have been vocal supporters of President Bush, and the war -- has led some people (including me) to wonder if the Republican coalition is going to split in the face of this abandonment of principle, especially as the national-security glue that has held the coalition together weakens in the face of success in Iraq. Some are even agitating for that result. I think it just might happen.

Republicans like to point out that you have to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything. The leadership, at least, of the Republican Party has abandoned the principles of small government and federalism that it used to stand for. Trampling traditional limits on governmental power in an earnest desire to do good in high-profile cases has been a hallmark of a certain sort of liberalism, and it's the sort of thing that I thought conservatives eschewed. If I were in charge of making the decision, I might well put the tube back and turn Terri Schiavo over to her family. But I'm not, and the Florida courts are, and they seem to have done a conscientious job. Maybe they came to the right decision, and maybe they didn't; this is a hard case. But respecting the courts' role in the system, and not rushing to overturn all the rules because we don't like the outcome, seems to me to be part of being a member of civilized society rather than a mob. I thought conservatives knew this. Before things are over, they may wish they hadn't forgotten.

Some activists -- like Bill Quick -- want to set up a MoveOn-type organization, only with the goal of dragging the Republican Party in a small-government direction. Others are threatening to vote Democratic next time. More, I suspect, will remain Republicans, but less committed ones: less likely to donate, volunteer, or turn out to vote. A Republican Party that was winning elections by landslide margins might not mind that. But I don't think that today's Republican Party has that luxury. The Schiavo legislation looks like that classic political misstep, a move that's dramatic enough to upset people, but not dramatic enough to satisfy the hard core. (Bush is now being savaged by pro-lifers for not doing enough.) In the end, I suspect it would have been better to stick to principle. It usually is.

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