Over the last week I’ve been in a lightly vegetative state. My L.V.S. was brought on by my lack of funds, my intense interest in college basketball and my overall aversion to work while on vacation.

Luckily, with spring break through, my L.V.S. will lift and I’ll be return to a fully functional human being.

Not so with Terri Schiavo.

It was all I could see on TV (besides hoops), read about in the newspaper or hear discussed around town.

Here’s why you and I should care: Terri Schiavo put a face on Tom DeLay.

In the immortal words of Jon Stewart, whaaa?

Hear me out.

Terri Schiavo will not be the focus of this article. Her case is easy. It is a sad, human tragedy, one her family would have dealt with on their own if the parasites hadn’t descended.

Schiavo’s husband has the legal right to ask her not to be kept alive, and no one can change that except the Florida legislature. With their large, near end-of-life population, they are unlikely to change their laws to accommodate the tragedy being played out in Pinellas Park.

It’s also a farce. A farce with the face of Tom DeLay.

Deciding that being tied to lobbyists who taunt and defraud Native Americans was not a good political move, DeLay came out guns blazing on behalf of Terri Schiavo. He should have saved his ammunition.

By promoting the law to save Terri Schiavo’s life (and no one else’s in a similar situation) and getting out in front of cameras to decry the “judicial barbarism” of federal Judge James Greer, DeLay hoped to grab this media bull by the horns and wrestle it into his conservative narrative.

It backfired, big time.

Thank God, too.

It’s Tom DeLay’s passionate embrace of a woman, a family and a cause that he should not be fighting, all while betraying his conservative principles that will be the kiss of death in this political melodrama.

Tom DeLay, and the rest of the Republicans who supported the misguided, unprincipled actions that brought about a federal law designed to bring one case under federal jurisdiction, found out quickly that the rest of America was not so appalled.

Gallup, Time, USA Today, CNN, CBS and ABC news polls all show that Americans, in wide majorities in both parties and even among evangelicals and others with strongly held beliefs, all believe that what DeLay and the president did last week was wrong. Most believe it was simply for political gain (and not out of any altruism or compassion), and made them more likely than not to withdraw their support of any candidate who voted for the Terri Schiavo law in the next election.

Whoops!

DeLay has cover. The 30 percent of Americans who do agree with DeLay generally represent that group that would agree with DeLay, whether or not he had done anything to help Terri Schiavo. Playing to the hardcore base (as is exhibited by the multiple arrests and passionate advocates in Florida) is always profitable in the short-run.

I believe this was a gross mistake, one that will raise Tom DeLay’s profile just when it should be sinking below the radar. He’s miscalculated by hoping the centrists of this country would buy the huckster’s morality he was selling. America did not and is better for it.

This has to be the most shameful, crass and gross exploitation for political gain of another human’s suffering I have seen in my lifetime.

My heart goes out to the Schindler family and Michael Schiavo.

Their daughter and wife will soon pass on, but the lingering stench of political opportunism will cling to them forever.

Rob Deters ([email protected]) is a third-year law student.