The front page of the Washington Post’s web site last night carried a story about a technical mishap at Fox television that caused some votes on “American Idol” to be recorded incorrectly. As a result, Fox will air an extra hour of “American Idol,” with – darn! – more expensive ad revenue.

The top story on the Post’s site was about Terri Schiavo. A majority of the Florida Senate, including nine Republicans, refused Jeb Bush’s request to take additional steps to have Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube reinserted, prompting howls from the masses thronging outside Ms. Schiavo’s hospice near Tampa.

The stories both have a “reality” television quality to them, with members of the general public assuming they can affect the outcome of the story line by calling in their votes.

American is now a theocracy and judgment is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Bible is filled with judgment stories, from Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden to the Egyptian plagues and the Israelites wandering in the desert to the trials of Job to the Book of Revelation. The fundamentalist interpretation is that God has a set of rules; happy are those who follow them, woe to those who break them. It bears emphasizing that God is supposed to be the one doing the judging. There’s no calling in your votes on eternal damnation. Fundamentalists, sinners like us all, cannot seem to resist slipping on God’s robe and cutting loose a few thunderbolts.

In Terri Schiavo’s case, judgment about her treatment clearly falls to her husband, Michael Schiavo. Not only are state and federal laws clear on this point, so is the Bible, which decrees that when people marry they shall leave their families and cleave unto their spouses.

Still, the urge to judge is strong and made stronger by the fact that we don’t have to live with the consequences of judgments we make on behalf of others. Perhaps that’s why “reality” shows are popular. All day we’re subject to forces that seem beyond our control in situations that never seem to be resolved. We come home and flip on the tube, call in our votes and play God – or watch Donald Trump play God, casting his hapless apprentices headfirst off corporate Mount Olympus.

The trend extends with thumbs-up-or-down movie reviews and an obsession with which movie is number one in America this week. Aside from a film studio accountant, who should care which movie is number one? Popular does not equal good. The same thing happens in politics. Seconds after a president has delivered a major speech, pundits hand out grades, usually based on style rather than substance. Forty-eight hours later another round of polls is out and the president is voted on or off the island.

This is the atmosphere that leads Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist – a transplant surgeon – to launch his career as a neurologist via videotape, declaring that all the court-appointed neurologists have misdiagnosed Ms. Schiavo’s condition. Fortunately for Mr. Frist, his professional and unbiased opinion is entirely in line with his party’s political position.

Calling in their votes via pollsters, 70-80 percent of Americans think Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die with whatever dignity she has left. It’s a nice number, but irrelevant – Michael Schiavo’s opinion is the only one that should matter. The same polls show that the religious right – the “base” that drives the Republican Party – want Ms. Schiavo kept alive. That’s why GOP operatives are circulating memos advising the pols that unconstitutional intervention in the Schiavo case can help get out the votes in ’06. The real god worshiped here is the golden calf of political power.

The latest developments indicate that Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube will not be reinserted. She may well die on Good Friday or Easter Sunday, providing another windfall for Senator Elmer Gantry. Someday all the players in this drama will face judgment, from God or history or their own consciences. We can only hope we are given more mercy than we have dispensed.

© Mark Floegel, 2005