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So many of us are unhappy with the way turn things have taken in Florida. And that is understandable -- what is happening here, it’s awful. But those of you tearing into Jeb and GW Bush over this, who believe one or the other should have sent in the troops to save Terri, your anger is misplaced.

We have heard quite a bit about checks and balances, separation of powers, recently. We’ve heard people say that the judicial branch is out of control. This is completely true. But these checks work both ways, and the solution to this error in one branch isn’t to repeat the same in another.

The executive branch cannot use its military or police powers to enforce its own will. Because the executive is given the most supreme of government powers, the only substantive power any government really has, that to use force to achieve its purposes, he can only act towards the objectives set forth by the legislature and interpreted by the judiciary. To do otherwise would be to declare martial law.

I’m not saying that there were no other options. Certainly it is up to the legislature and the people to rein in these nutty judges, for they have that power. And when a judge orders something such as this, it is up to the governor to deny him the use of any executive powers.

I believe the proper course of action on Jeb’s part would have been to forbid any policing body to enforce the judge’s order. If anyone went on to obey the judge, that person should have been stripped of his police powers. Continuing, that one could be arrested and this arrest enforced by executive might. Even this would be extraordinary, and in opinion fell the wrong way even worthy of impeachment, but it would be proper, legal, and true to the role of the executive branch.

Certainly Jeb failed to do these things in this case. But at the same time, this is not what I see any of his accusers asking for either. Instead we want direct intervention by the governor, and Jeb is right to refuse us that.

By no means can Jeb be held blameless in this whole affair, but so many of you people accusing him need some perspective. No governor in my memory has ever done so much, pressed the legislature so hard, to correct an injustice. And at the same time, Jeb has done it with a respect for the law and for the protections we the people are afforded against, well, against him and the power he wields. It hasn’t been enough, but it is more than any of his faceless accusers on both the right and the left have done for Terry in this case.