Could Noelle Bush get away with murder? Maybe not, but she can obviously get away with much more then the rest of us. Gov. Jeb Bush has made this entire scandal surrounding his daughter quite a bit easier on himself, his family and probably his campaign by getting his daughter a ride down easy street. However, if he truly cared for Noelle and her future, he should have let her face the consequences.

In January, Noelle Bush called in a fake prescription to a Walgreens pharmacy in Tallahassee. She was arrested and later confessed to trying to purchase the anxiety drug and narcotic Xanax with a phony prescription. She was ordered into rehab at the Center for Drug-Free Living in Orlando for a second time.

In July, staff found unauthorized prescription drugs in her possession, and she was brought before a district judge who ordered her to complete her rehabilitation, which amounted to a slap on the wrist. In September, other patients in the clinic complained that Bush had cocaine, and a small amount was found in her shoe.

Bush has received extensive amounts of special treatment. Her 10-day jail sentence was a joke. Having possession of cocaine normally carries a 10-year minimum sentence, especially under the governor’s campaign against drug abuse in Florida.

While it’s understandable that any decent father would use everything in his power to help his child, Jeb Bush is clearly not facing the facts. Dr. David Spiegel of Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders told The Florida Times-Union that most people who use Xanax for anxiety, as Bush has claimed she does, do not abuse it. He said that the people who do abuse the drug usually use it to help them down from another drug high.

Noelle Bush clearly has a problem that goes far beyond anxiety, and despite recent claims that he will no longer help his daughter with her legal battles, the governor has already done damage. He has saved her from the law when she obviously needed a wake-up call, and she will continue to be an abuser until he stops being an enabler.