In the matter of politics, it takes a lot to disturb me.

I’ve observed politicians up close and personal for many years – first as a college student political activist, then for eight years in Washington, D.C., working on Capitol Hill, and now for more than five years of covering them as a journalist. Although I remain committed to a biblical understanding of Christian citizenship which dictates active participation in our political process, long ago I abandoned an unhealthy, idealistic view of those who serve in elected office.

Still, Sen. Mel Martinez’s recent modified mea culpa for his efforts in the United States Senate last year to attempt to save Terri Schiavo’s life is hard to take even for a veteran political observer like me.

“Perhaps this was not in the realm of federal concern,” Martinez said Feb. 12 during “Political Connections,” a television program which is a joint venture of Tampa’s Bay News 9 and the St. Petersburg Times. “It may have been better left to state courts to deal with it.”

Suggesting the apparent public opposition to efforts on behalf of the severely brain-damaged woman whose husband was seeking to starve/dehydrate her to death as a “whack across the head,” Martinez added the federal legislative effort he led sought “one last measure of review. That’s what the debate was about in the Senate. If I had to take one lesson away it’s perhaps decisions of this nature really belong in state courts, not federal courts.”

Martinez’s comments brought immediate attention around the Sunshine State in the news and editorial pages of major daily newspapers. So much attention, in fact, that Martinez’s spokeswoman Kerry Feehery issued the following clarification: “At no time did the senator say he was mistaken for his involvement or issue an apology for his involvement.”

As Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell deftly noted, “So he may have made a mistake. But he was not mistaken. And he’s certainly not sorry about it. Welcome to Spin University – where Professor Clinton will be teaching the introductory class: ‘It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.’”

Ouch.

Florida’s junior United States senator has reached quite a low when he’s compared to the likes of former President Bill Clinton, the quintessential spinmeister.

To whatever degree Sen. Martinez was or was not “mistaken” in the Schiavo matter, the spin machine at Martinez central as of Feb. 27 still proudly displays on the senator’s official Web site the Feb. 13 Associated Press story, “Republican senator says he was mistaken on Schiavo debate” (my emphasis).

Martinez’s flip-flop on Schiavo came two weeks after similar backpedaling by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who is widely expected to seek the GOP nomination for president in 2008.

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” if he had any regrets regarding the Schiavo case, Frist said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I learned from it, which is obvious. The American people don’t want you involved in these decisions.”

Genuflecting to his pro-life base, Frist gamely noted, “When you’re taking innocent life, with parents who want that life preserved, you’ve got to make sure, and therefore stepping in to say, let’s take one more review, that’s what we did.”

Frist added, “I accept the outcome. I don’t agree with the moral sense of it.”

When Martinez is around Washington a little longer, he’ll learn to be more adept at flip-flopping, like Frist.

It’s funny how political perceptions change over time. Martinez’s office, you may recall, was at the center of a controversy in the midst of the Schiavo debate for a memo distributed by a staffer suggesting the matter would be a “great political issue” for Republicans. The staffer no longer works for Martinez, who immediately repudiated the memo when it was traced back to his office.

Even Florida’s Democratic senator, Bill Nelson, who is no friend to the pro-life movement, joined other liberal senators in support of the Schiavo legislation. Like Martinez, in subsequent months he has distanced himself from the whole episode.

The politicians’ flip-flops are driven by some public opinion polling, suggesting most voters objected to the federal and state legislative efforts to aid Terri Schiavo. These politicians are reading the wrong polls.

An April 2005 Zogby poll found that 80 percent of likely voters agreed that a disabled person without a written directive who is not terminally ill, in a coma or being kept alive by life support should not be denied food and water. This was precisely the fact pattern of Terri Schiavo. As the official coroner’s investigation found, Schiavo died as a result of “marked dehydration.”

It’s quite disturbing to say nearly a year after the fact that it was wrong to seek merely a civil rights review of the Schiavo case in the federal courts even while a woman in America – in Martinez’s home state – was being starved/dehydrated to death.

No matter what polls say, there ought to be an expectation that our elected officials will do what they believe is right, even if it is politically unpopular. Some principles – like the defense of helpless human beings – should not be subjected to the vagaries of polling, especially for those, like Sen. Martinez, who claim the pro-life banner.