Sometimes I think Democrats owe Terri Schiavo a prayer of gratitude

Because history may well prove me wrong, but it looks to me as though what the right-wing did about her marks the moment that Americans finally started to realize what most of us now know.

Via Tennessee Guerilla Women:

"The drop in the number of people who see Bush as honest was strongest among middle-aged Americans as well as suburban women, a key voting group in the 2004 election. A further erosion of trust could make it tougher for Bush to win support for his policies in Congress and internationally.

But the portion of people who view his confidence as arrogance has increased from 49 percent in January to 56 percent now.

"This country is a monarchy," said Charles Nuutinen, a 62-year-old independent from Greenville, Wis. "He's turning this country into Saudi Arabia. He does what he wants. He doesn't care what the people want." "

Looking back, that--the Schiavo case-really does seem to be the first moment that an overwhelming number of people in this country opposed something Bush and the Republican congress did. The GOP so completely misjudged, was so utterly tone-deaf about how it was going to make them look and the concerns it was going to raise among many Americans about the moral agenda of the Republican party.

And they ended up with mud all over themselves.

Unless I'm mistaken, ever since then, Bush's polls have been steadily dropping, and dropping, and dropping, and dropping. So I think I'm justified in saying that the right-wing being that wrong about Teri Schiavo is the moment that the slim majority of Americans who voted for George W. Bush woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.