The possible next vice president of the United States, Jeb Bush, is having such a swell week -- his former prisons chief pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks and one of his judicial selection committee appointees resigned after calling Islam a "cult" -- that he may as well shoot the moon and throw his arm around another menace to society:

Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday sided with a nurse who could lose her license because she discussed Terri Schiavo's medical condition on national TV.

"The governor feels the actions taken against Carla Sauer-Iyer are not justified and hopes that the complaint will be reconsidered and dismissed," Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss wrote in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times. "She did not disclose any information which was not already public."

On Thursday, the Department of Health requested the Board of Nursing to dismiss the agency's complaint that Sauer-Iyer, 42, improperly disclosed patient information on CNN last year.

... The case against Sauer-Iyer began on March 28, 2005, when the Health Department received a complaint from a Massachusetts registered nurse who said Sauer-Iyer made "unsubstantiated comments" on CNN "that with 'just a little bit of therapy' Mrs. Schiavo could be rehabilitated." ...

S.Z. at World O' Crap quotes a Cult of Schiavo house organ, the North Country Gazette, which tells us more:

Among the facts revealed to the broader public in the CNN interview was that Iyer witnessed Terri say, "Mommy, help me", and "pain", and would also interact with the nurses and visitors....

Iyer maintained that there exists over 4 hours of videotape from '95 and '96 proving this, but that it was placed under gag-order, including her own testimony about Michael Schiavo's treatment of Terri.

(Ms. Sauer-Iyer claims to have heard Michael Schiavo make remarks such as "When is that bitch gonna die?" She also says he regularly injected Terri with insulin in order to harm her.)

S.Z. also quotes a radio interview with the nurse:

I made numerous entries into the nursing notes in her chart, stating verbatim what she said and her various behaviors, but by my next on-duty shift, the notes would be deleted from her chart. Every time I made a positive entry about any responsiveness of Terri’s, someone would remove it after my shift ended.

Yeah, I think governors should definitely defend nurses who are either clinically delusional or willing to spread baldfaced lies about their patients on national TV. And that's also a character trait I like in my vice presidents.