(Jim Morin via GoComics.com)
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Never turn your back on a member of the Bush crime syndicate. John Ellis “I Got Ma’s Woodchuck Genes While That Lucky Sumbitch Dubya Got Pater’s Sewer Rat DNA” Bush is busily undermining his way beneath the garden fence of the media’s good graces, and loyal family retainer Michael “Wormtongue” Gerson is still working the streetcorner for him:
Jeb Bush’s recent field trip to Washington was not pleasant, but it was clarifying — a civics lesson in democracy’s darker side.
On June 1, Bush testified before the House Budget Committee on the topic of entitlement reform. First came an ambush by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — also head of the Democratic National Committee — who delivered a partisan tirade on an obscure spending item that Bush had supported as Florida’s governor. Then Bush ventured to criticize anti-tax pledges, which “outsource your principles and convictions” — comments that Grover Norquist, president of the advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, immediately attacked as “ignorant” and “embarrassing.”
It was Washington in miniature: a momentous topic treated with the dignity and seriousness of cage boxing. Bush recalls the hearing as a “circus” and “laughable.” “It was not a discussion,” he told me, “but long questions that were really statements.” Bush, who has been reading Robert A. Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, “The Passage of Power,” was struck by the historical contrast. “You might not always like where he came out, but Johnson used power to solve problems.” …
The existence of zombies is hereby disproved, because Zombie Lyndon Johnson did not rise screaming from his catafalque and kick both Gerson’s and Jeb’s flabby dishonest arses.
We are never going to be rid of this gang of thugs and criminals. For all Jeb pretends to Charlie Rose he ‘regrets’ that he won’t be Romney’s VP — second banana to a failed candidate is no place for a Bush, Poppy told him — Jonathan Chait is not the only observer who thinks Jeb is positioning himself for 2016:
… To understand what Bush is saying, you need to anticipate how the party might diagnose the causes of a loss in 2012, and then you can see how he is setting himself as the cure. Bush has been publicly urging Republicans to moderate their tone toward Latinos and to embrace immigration reform…
Other than that, Bush has largely followed the example of his brother’s 2000 campaign, offering a great deal of moderation in tone and very little in substance. [Last week] he spoke fulsomely on the merits of bipartisanship without committing himself to support a generalized move toward the center on anything other than immigration. In customary party fashion, he lashed President Obama for failing to fully endorse the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan, but subsequently admitted he would have opposed it as well due to its higher tax revenues.
If you try to imagine the Republican consensus after a potential losing election, it will look like this. It will recognize that its harsh partisan rhetoric turned off voters, and will urgently want to woo Latinos, while holding on to as much as possible of the party’s domestic policy agenda. And oh, by the way, the party will be casting about for somebody to lead it.
The narrative I’d heard was that JEB! got sidelined in 1998 because “the smarter brother” couldn’t resist keeping records of some of his helpful advice to Miami’s Batistas-in-exile developers/sugar barons on destroying the Everglades and plundering the state treasury. (Dubya, the lazy putz, never made any detectable effort to justify the money Daddy’s rich friends funnelled his way in any of his various sinecures — and if he had, it wouldn’t have been worth writing down.) Apparently, Citizens United and the Walker non-recall have taken the stench off pandering to the local robber barons’ every whim, semi-licit or otherwise. And if Fidel would just hurry up and die, only progressive DFH bullys will be using hurtful terms like banana republic or bagman by, say, 2014. Ever since Prescott Bush got away with smuggling gold for the Nazis (it wasn’t at all political, he just did it for the money), the Bush dynasty has relied upon the American voters’ short memories and the One Percenters’ loyalty to “proven producers”.
Violet
Jeb’s wife is Mexican. That’s not going to endear him to the racists that make up the majority of his party’s voters.
KG
For fuck’s sake… Jeb has been positioning himself for a run since 2002 or so (probably even earlier). He’d probably have run in 2008 if his brother hadn’t shit the bed. He’d probably have run this time if the stench wasn’t still in the air.
Violet
@KG:
I just don’t think voters are going to forgive Jeb for W’s mess. I just don’t think it’s gonna happen.
Chris
So far, we’ve got probables on Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Scott Walker… oy. Looks like 2016 will be every bit as much of a clown show as 2012, though that’s to be expected.
The Red Pen
…or the Tea Party will say “See! We told you that Obamney would fail! Now we need a REEL KONSURVATIV™” and they will run Tom Tancredo in 2016.
Culture of Truth
Oh those clowns in Congress
Sasha
@Violet:
It’s like antibodies: an injection of Bush Brother I in the body politic will prevent any intrusion of Bush Brother II from taking hold.
MariedeGournay
@Sasha: Heh, cure seems to have almost killed the patient.
Culture of Truth
George Bush was a great President. Just watch that 90 minute HBO tongue bath.
The Other Chuck
I’m not sure I buy the Republicans quoting Shakespeare. Seems a little too innalekshul for them, don’t you think?
KG
@Violet: normally, I’d agree, but think of this…
1. Who does the GOP have as a plausible nominee in 2016? Scott Walker? Mitch Daniels? Chris Christie? Jan Brewer?
2. It’s not so much about the general election body politic as it is the GOP primary body politic. If they were given a choice between Jeb and any of those four I just mentioned, who do they take?
3. Now, imagine Jeb wins the GOP primary and a less than stellar Democrat gets the nomination. Say Kaine or Sebelius or someone generally uninspiring. Who wins that general election? Given the rare history of the same party winning three times in a row?
By 2016, we will be 8 years away from the economic collapse, 12 years away from the Iraq clusterfuck, and 15 years away from 9/11.
Bluecrab
“Jeb’s wife is Mexican.”
Interesting. A few years ago, I heard him on one of the Spanish networks here in the States telling people to evacuate some part of Florida because of an impending hurricane. He speaks very fluent Spanish, but he sounds much more Cuban than Mexican.
Having said that, he’s a complete tool and asshat, and shouldn’t be allowed within a country mile of the White House. A constitutional amendment banning any Bush from running for president would be nice. ;~)
KG
@Bluecrab: his wife is Puerto Rican, I think. And he probably sounds more Cuban because that’s the dominate dialect in Florida.
ETA: nevermind, she is Mexican… I must have confused her with someone else.
Yutsano
@KG: Nope, Mexicano.
Bubblegum Tate
@The Other Chuck:
CARL: Let’s make litter out of these literati!
LENNY: That’s too clever–you’re one of them!
Allan
Poor Jeb. Never before in the history of the Republic have members of Congress used their question time in hearings to lecture and pontificate, instead of asking short, respectful questions that allow the witness to communicate complex ideas.
Betty Cracker
I don’t think Jeb(!)’s entanglement with the Sugar Kings is what derailed him. He ran into the buzz saw that was Mr. Lawton Chiles, a competent Dem (too conservative for my taste but infinitely better than his successors). Even then it was a narrow thing. Chiles made Bush look like the carpetbagger he is during that campaign. That’s why Bush lost.
Patricia Kayden
“Jeb is positioning himself for 2016”
Positioning for what? George Bush is still disliked by most Americans. And Father Bush only won one term. I don’t think 2016 is far enough away for people to want another Bush in the White House.
rikyrah
it always cracks me up when I read that Jeb was the ‘smart one’.
always.
lacp
If people actually “remembered” much about the Bush years, why are 40+ percent of voters likely to cast their ballots for someone who is (to the extent he actually commits to anything) offering exactly the same policies?
Brachiator
Just empty punditry. All kinds of stuff can happen between now and then.
Also, too, if Mittens wins in 2012, then Jeb becomes irrelevant. If Obama wins re-election, then Hillary Clinton easily wins the 2016 election. Jeb becomes irrelevant.
See, I can speak pundit, too.
Villago Delenda Est
@KG:
He’ll wait for a long time. The stench of his deserting coward brother is pretty strong.
rumpole
These folks play the long game. Romney will lose. Obama will be a lame duck from the day after his inauguration. It is ALL about 2016. Walker, Kasich, Bush, Pawlenty, perhaps even Ryan (though I see him as a more as a VP pick).
Villago Delenda Est
@The Red Pen:
FSM does not love us that much.
Tancredo will, all by himself, turn the Florida Cubans into Democrats.
Brachiator
@rumpole:
Then the Democrats had better improve their long game as well. There ain’t no rule saying that only the GOP can have a long term political strategy.
Baud
@Brachiator:
This. That’s what was so frustrating about where’s-my-ponyism–It’s all about the short term and throws long-term strategies under the bus.
Silver Wolf
@Violet:
You think most of them know or care? The media won’t bring it up.
negative 1
@Violet: They won’t be the majority of that party forever, and republicans know it. They’ve got their eye on cleaning house after this election. You’ll see that stuff start to get swept under the rug, there will be ‘bad immigrants’ and ‘good immigrants’ soon enough and they’ll farm out the Joe Arapiaos of the world. Racists are to republicans as labor is to democrats – the voting bloc of last resort. If dems lean on labor it’s because there’s no one left, the same as when the repubs go the full wingnut. In their heart they know that the racist nationalist set will never vote for a democrat, so they don’t have to worry about them abandoning the party. But the only reason this is even a contested election is because of their painting themselves into a demographic corner, and of course they know this. Karl Rove is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them.
libarbarian
He’s right about Congress people using hearings as photo-ops to grandstand. It’s normal, although it probably shouldn’t be