“There is only one thing that I really miss about being president, and that’s being the commander-in-chief.”
— George W. Bush, quoted by The Hill.
Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 193
The Magnificent Seven
Trial Balloon · Ep. 193: The Magnificent Seven
Jeb Bush Distances Himself from His Brother
New York Times: “When Mr. Bush’s brother George first ran for president, he erroneously referred to Greeks as ‘Grecians,’ flubbed the name of India’s president and confused Slovenia with Slovakia, offering the world an unabashed portrait of provinciality.”
“But across Europe this week, Jeb Bush revealed himself to be a very different kind of Bush: well traveled, almost encyclopedically knowledgeable about foreign countries, and possessing the genuine inquisitiveness that his brother had so notably lacked… Mr. Bush’s trip here has been a reminder that his attempt to escape the shadow of his older brother, as awkward and halting as it may be, is not just a political strategy. It reflects how dissimilar the two men really are, in temperament, interests and preparation.”
Rumsfeld Says Bush Was Wrong on Iraq
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Times of London “that efforts to oust Saddam Hussein and replace his tyrannical regime with democracy were unworkable, and that he had concerns about the plan from the beginning.”
Said Rumsfeld: “I’m not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories. The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic. I was concerned about it when I first heard those words.”
Bush Rakes In Speaking Fees Too
“As critics over the years have chided Bill Clinton and also his wife for the industriousness with which they have pursued opportunities to get paid a lot of money in this manner, Bush, too, has been doing exactly what he said he would be doing. Since 2009, Politico has found, Bush has given at least 200 paid speeches and probably many more, typically pocketing $100,000 to $175,000 per appearance. The part-time work, which rarely requires more than an hour on stage, has earned him tens of millions of dollars.”
“Relative to the Clintons, though, he’s attracted considerably less attention, almost always doing his paid public speaking in private, in convention centers and hotel ballrooms, resorts and casinos, from Canada to Asia, from New York to Miami, from all over Texas to Las Vegas a bunch, playing his part in what has become a lucrative staple of the modern post-presidency.”
Look Who Pushed Bush’s Anti-Gay Agenda
Huffington Post: “During the 2004 elections, George W. Bush’s campaign, managed by a closeted gay man, pushed a series of anti-gay ballot initiatives across the country. The House of Representatives, led by a male speaker who allegedly sexually assaulted a male minor, moved a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage after beating back attempts to strengthen hate crimes legislation. And the White House, led in part by a vice president with a lesbian daughter, eagerly encouraged a conservative evangelical base hostile to gay rights.”
Bush Now Outpolls Obama
A new CNN/ORC poll finds former President George W. Bush has more favorable ratings than President Obama.
“Bush is seen in a favorable light by 52 percent of those surveyed, compared with 43 percent who still view the 43rd president unfavorably. Americans are split on Obama, with 49 percent responding favorably and unfavorably. The last time Bush polled in positive territory was in early April 2005, close to three months into his second term.”
Iowa Voters Don’t See Issue with Former Presidents
A new Bloomberg/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll finds 57% of likely Republican caucus-goers said that it would be “mostly good” for Jeb Bush’s presidency if he were to tap his older brother, George, as a close adviser. Thirty-three percent said such an arrangement would be “mostly bad” for Jeb Bush’s presidency.
As for Hillary Clinton, a whopping 83% of likely Democratic caucus-goers approved of the idea of her using her husband, Bill, as a close adviser, while just 9% said doing so was a “mostly bad” suggestion for her presidency.
Jeb Bush Struggles to Win Over Brother’s Team
New York Times: “A sampling conducted largely by email of about 120 people who worked for George W. Bush — from cabinet secretaries to foreign policy advisers to advance aides — found about 25 who said they were supporting his younger brother. Fifty others said they were neutral or supporting another candidate, while the rest did not respond, passing up a chance to declare allegiance to the next Bush candidacy.”
GOP Clings to Bush Economics
Jonathan Chait: “Indeed, the striking fact about the Republican Party is how little it has questioned Bush’s economic program. The central tenets of Bush-era economic doctrine remain as firmly entrenched as ever. All the Republican economic proposals combine deep tax cuts, higher defense spending, and a general refusal to accept that revenues must bear some long-term relationship to likely outlays.”
“The party’s disposition toward Bush’s Iraq War has attracted deep (and warranted) scrutiny. Its disposition toward Bush’s economic policies has not. Despite their bellicose rhetoric, none of the Republican candidates are actually proposing to recapitulate his regime-change policy, in Iraq or elsewhere. It is in domestic policy where Bush-era dogma remains completely unreconstructed.”
Marco Rubio Wrong on Iraq
The Washington Post Fact Checker finds Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) claim that former President George W. Bush said himself that he would not have invaded Iraq is “simply false.”
“We can find no evidence to justify Rubio’s claim that former president Bush has said that he would not have invaded Iraq if he had known no weapons of mass destruction would have been found. Rather, he and most of his top aides have insisted that the invasion was still justified despite the failure to find such weapons… The former president has never suggested he would not have invaded Iraq if he had known there were no weapons of mass destruction; instead, as recently as 2014, he has insisted his decision to invade was correct.”
Quote of the Day
“I did stand up and defend the president, President Bush, that I did say I think any president, regardless of party, probably would’ve made a similar decision to what President Bush did at the time, with the information he had available.”
— Gov. Scott Walker, quoted by the Washington Post, vouching for George W. Bush’s decision-making on Iraq at the time of the invasion.
Bush Donor Network Springs to Life
The Wall Street Journal “identified 326 donors who hosted fundraisers this year for Mr. Bush’s super PAC, based on invitations and news reports compiled by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan government watchdog.”
“One in five were either members of the ‘Team 100,’ those who raised at least $100,000 for the Republican National Committee during George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign—or ‘Pioneers’ or ‘Rangers,’ who collected at least $100,000 or $200,000 for George W. Bush’s national campaigns.”
“Nearly a quarter worked in at least one of the Bush White Houses or received a presidential appointment; 24 were tapped by Mr. Bush’s father or brother to serve as ambassadors; 46 worked in Mr. Bush’s administration in Florida or were appointed to advisory boards. A number of donors belong to more than one of these categories.”
Jeb Bush Finally Says He Would Not Have Invaded Iraq
“After a week of painfully struggling to talk about the war in Iraq started by his brother,” Jeb Bush (R) said definitively “that he would not have invaded that country based on the intelligence failures that now are known,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Bush: “Knowing what we now know, I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq.”
“Bush said the lives of U.S. armed forces were not lost in vain -– ‘their sacrifice was worth honoring, not depreciating’ — but that given the intelligence failures that have since been established, he would not have led the country into war in Iraq.”
National Journal: Bush’s four different answers to the same Iraq question
The Day Reagan Was Shot
The Dallas Morning News has a must-read piece on what Vice President George H.W. Bush was doing the day Ronald Reagan was shot.
“Now 90, Bush consented to an email interview for this story. His comments, along with hours of tapes from inside the White House Situation Room, never seen photographs taken aboard Air Force Two and interviews with participants in the crisis shed new light on the day Reagan became the fifth sitting president to be shot and the only one who lived.”
Jeb Bush Struggles to be His Own Man
Jeb Bush “is struggling to navigate his relationship with George W. Bush and his legacy. He has fumbled the most basic, predictable questions about the Iraq war — while behind the scenes, he has assured skeptical conservatives that he draws wisdom and important counsel from the former president,” the New York Times reports.
“The uneasiness stems in part from the two men’s awkward relationship, which was never close and was often competitive. But it also reflects Mr. Bush’s challenge in trying to deal with a fractured electorate in which some conservatives cling to the former president, but he remains a focus of anger across much of the rest of the political spectrum.”
Washington Post: “The stumbles mark the toughest period yet for Bush’s still-undeclared campaign and have lit a fire under his likely GOP opponents, many of whom have happily proclaimed that they would not have authorized the Iraq invasion under those conditions. Many conservative leaders and pundits are also lacerating Bush as appearing unprepared to address an obvious topic and are casting him as a tone-deaf relic of the GOP elite. “
Bush Rivals Answer Questions About Iraq
As Jeb Bush continues to struggle with whether he would have made the same decision as his brother did to invade Iraq, his likely rivals for the GOP presidential nomination are much clearer.
Sen. Ted Cruz to The Hill: “Knowing what we know now, of course we wouldn’t go into Iraq.”
Gov. John Kasich to the Columbus Dispatch: “If the question is, if there were not weapons of mass destruction should we have gone, the answer would’ve been no.”
Gov. Chris Christie to CNN: “I don’t think you can honestly say that if we knew then that there was no WMD that the country should have gone to war.”
Jeb Bush Slammed Over Embrace of Iraq War
Jon Stewart has a few thoughts on Jeb Bush’s recent endorsement of his brother’s foreign policy record.
Bush Says He Misinterpreted Iraq Question
Jeb Bush “sought to arrest a chorus of criticism from Democrats and some conservatives after he told an interviewer that, knowing what history has since shown about intelligence failures, he still would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq,” the New York Times reports.
“Calling in to Sean Hannity’s syndicated radio show, Mr. Bush said he had misunderstood a question that one of Mr. Hannity’s Fox News colleagues, Megyn Kelly, had asked him in an interview shown on Sunday and Monday nights.”
Said Bush: “I interpreted the question wrong, I guess. I was talking about, given what people knew then.”
First Read: “If you’re a politician signaling you’re going to clean up a problem, then fully clean it up. But that wasn’t the case for Jeb.”
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Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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