Yeah, a Palin post followed by a Jeb Bush post, I know I know. Deal with it.
Glad to see that at least one insidery pundit type, Marc Ambinder, knows what’s the dealio, as the kids say:
Why Jeb Bush will never be president
[….]The American people, of course, have two trillion-dollar wars in their Bush memory bank association. It’s not fair to the bro of George W., but it is what it is. Associations matter. If he were to change his name to Jeb Smith, then…
The strangest of all the Beltway myths is the one about George W. Bush: the one where the public loved their cowboy king (even though he won by 1.5 points less than Obama did, and with a much better economy) and like him even now, his historically low approval ratings be damned. I’m not sure whence it came.
Comrade Dread
I like the fact that he’s not around to make things worse. I like the fact that he finally exposed the Republican Party as a bunch of myopic, immoral hacks bereft of empathy and soul.
I’d like the man better if he were wearing an orange jumpsuit and spending his days in a Federal corrections facility with most of his administration.
As to your question, it goes back to the “Aw, Shucks! I’m just a down home regular guy that you’d rather have a beer with’ narrative that the media fucking loves.
Nylund
George W. Bush won the popular vote of one of his two elections, and then only by a slim margin. But because the media has a liberal bias, this was proof of a new permanent conservative majority…
DC villagers must be smoking some pretty good stuff.
Ben Cisco
Same place all their delusions come from – straight from the NeoConfederate puke funnel. Like mama birds feeding their young, but with bullshit.
Chris
If George W. Bush’s presidency taught us nothing else, it taught us that. The Bush family name was the only thing that allowed George to indulge his presidential ambitions, and it’s now the only thing preventing Jeb from aspiring to the same. There’s something poetic about that.
MattF
Well, you know, it’s not the number of people who voted for GWB that matters, it’s their… quality. And about Jeb, I think being Bush III is problematic all by itself, even putting aside the disaster of Bush II.
boss bitch
Beltway treats the Bush family like they are our royal family. They treat them as if they are natural heirs to the White House. It will never stop.
penpen
soft bigotry of lowered expectations as to the public, innit.
Scott S.
The Beltway and the Village suffer from the same failings as the Modern GOP — they can never admit they were wrong about anything. Luckily, that means they can never change and with any luck, will eventually be eaten alive by stronger, healthier, angrier opponents.
PeakVT
@Nylund: I think the problem is not substance abuse, but a transmissible disease, like BSE.
ricky
I won’t beleive it until I hear it from a credible journalist, like Luke Russert
Villago Delenda Est
The deserting coward only won in 2004 because Ohio was rigged.
The only election this maggot “won” at the Federal level was a 5-4 vote by the US Supreme Court that the majority insisted did not establish any sort of precedent.
Scalia should be put to a slow death for that alone, never mind his other crimes.
C.J.
Broken clocks, etc.
Villago Delenda Est
@boss bitch:
Our “royal family” deserves the same fate as the Bourbons and Romanovs.
Roger Moore
Simple: the Villagers liked him. He gave them funny nicknames and generally treated them like the courtiers they aspire to be, so they remember the Bush 43 era fondly. They don’t get that the rest of the country didn’t share their personal attachment to Bush and consequently doesn’t have their secret personal longing to have him back.
Nina
Well, now, if only we had kept to original Constitutional values and not let us frivolous wimminfolk have the vote then Jeb! would be a shoo-in. Not to mention that whole 3/5 question.
jl
Given Jeb Bush’s immigration flip flop flip flop, I think it is worse for anyone who keeps track: more like a Dub x Mitt problem.
How bad it is depends on whether Jeb keeps flipflopflipflopping, and who many bother the keep track (or how many money bags hate Jeb enough to keep track and put out attack ads on it next election).
kerFuFFler
It’s a shame how many political dynasties we have had in this country. Surely one of the benefits of getting rid of royal rule should have been the virtual end of dynasties. I suppose the fact that name recognition is this big a factor in elections here does not speak well for our electorate and our collective mental capacity!
Chris
@kerFuFFler:
Ditch the royal family, replace it with a bunch of aristocratic Great Houses competing for the throne and for influence and access to what it represents… I suspect a lot of the Virginian plantation owners that were involved in the creation of the country liked that idea.
Villago Delenda Est
@kerFuFFler:
I learned in high school that name recognition is all that matters in elections for most people voting. One year, I was a nobody, put my name in for the student budget committee, and didn’t get in. The next year, after having my name as a byline in the school paper for six months prior, I ran, and was elected.
That damn simple. What my platform was, or what I advocated, or anything else was utterly irrelevant.
Norm Petersen could be elected President on this basis.
ricky
@Villago Delenda Est:
So, I imagine, was the service rendered once you got in.
But thank you for it.
PeakVT
@Villago Delenda Est: Humans may not be smart enough for democracy to work.
pamelabrown53
Jeb Bush will not be the republican nominee.Remember the Terry Schiavo case? He and his IQ challenged brother ceaslesssly tried to subvert the FL. court system because of “limited government” and “freedom”?
Also, too, Marco Rubio is a Jeb protege. Rubio is trying to leapfrog Jeb. Methinks they’ll destroy each other if necessary.
I write this as a Floridian who has a ring side seat.
J.W. Hamner
The first question ultimately is: Can Jeb Win The Republican Primary?
If the answer to that question is yes, and I think it is… because they do love them some G.W… then I think you have to say that he can in fact be President. It may take another catastrophic financial collapse or epidemic that kills every Democratic contender… but in a two party system it’s definitely still possible.
gene108
The right-wing media, pundit class and politicians know how to polish a turd. They’ve had a lot of practice, with rehabilitating Nixon’s reputation in the 1980’s and 1990’s and deflecting blame of Iran-Contra from Reagan and Bush, Sr.
They never delve into the self-critical/self-flagellation liberals get into.
They declare victory, no matter how close or contested that “victory” was.
Bush Tax Cuts: Success! (Never mind Cheney casting the tie breaking vote in the Senate in 2003).
Iraq: The Surge! Victory! We won, liberated Iraq and went home!
Liberals could learn a thing or three from right-wingers, when it comes to messaging and projecting strength, especially after a political win like Obamacare.
Ben Cisco
@pamelabrown53: I have a cargo hold full of popcorn should you need it.
Citizen_X
So, hos before bros, huh?
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
Mike G
@Chris:
I remember one survey after the 2000 selection that indicated something like 13% of the people who voted for the Smirking Chimp thought they were voting for GHW Bush.
Chris
@Mike G:
Sadly, I totally buy it.
I remember a guy on IMDb’s message board for “Three Kings” who was posting at the height of the Iraq War years; basically, “does Bush Derangement Syndrome know no limits? Liberal Hollywood actually made a movie that talks trash about Bush! HA! But they set it during the FIRST Gulf War! Bush wasn’t even ELECTED yet! Stupid liberals!”
They’re never so LOLtastic as when they think they’re being smart.
Ben Cisco
@Mike G: Which brings up the REAL problem – as dim as W was, his supporters were easy marks. Same old same old…
Fair Economist
@PeakVT:
Gosh, I wonder why you don’t see studies saying “Humans may not be smart enough for the free market to work”. Because free market theory assumes human can foresee all results of their choices with perfect accuracy out to the indefinite future. Oh, and they can all do perfect negotiations instantaneously at no cost. It’s like the economics profession and its funders have a bias.
geg6
Projection. Couldn’t be anything else.
PeakVT
@Ben Cisco: I thought that hold was full of self-sealing stem bolts.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Chris:
Jackson’s Whole!
/obBujold
Chris
@PeakVT:
No it doesn’t. It relies on the assumption that people have the right to choose their political candidates. No one is saying they’ll never exercise that right unwisely.
The trouble with pretty much every alternative to democracy is the assumption that it’s possible to create a ruling class not chosen by the public which
1) will be any smarter or any less prone to the psychological bloody-mindedness that this article derides than the general public – and if you believe that, 1a) I’ve got ocean front property in Oklahoma to sell you and 1b) just look at our 1%ers today.
2) will be at all interested in using their supposedly superior intelligence and qualifications, even assuming they have it, in a way that benefits the country rather than themselves.
Unless you’re going with anarchy (every man for himself), which is a clusterfuck of its own for obvious reasons.
ricky
Associations matter.
http://www.infowars.com/obama-betrays-america-yet-again-by-signing-the-monsanto-protection-act-into-law/
daverave
This seems like an appropriate place to mention the fun fact that there hasn’t been a winning Republican presidential ticket without a Bush or Nixon on it since Hoover in 1929.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kerFuFFler:
Have we really had that many dynasties? At the presidential level only 2 families have ever placed more than 1 member in the WH. That’s not much to show for a span of 2 centuries and then some. Congress and state level govt is a different story of course.
cmorenc
Where’s Martin Van Buren when we need him?
Woody
Sorry, but this one’s easy. Remember, there have been two previous generations of the House of Bush (and a particularly vicious but canny spouse in Barbara) that have been major power centers in DC.
Every aristocratic House has a large retinue of attendants, allies, loyalists, etc that are themselves very adept at playing Royal Court. I guarantee behind the scenes all over DC there are House of Bush minions negotiating alliances, planting rumors, and running intelligence networks. They’ve definitely begun cultivating the particularly venal DC/NY media (save Richard Cohen – they don’t have to waste time with him, he’ll literally write anything he believes makes him look “in the know” so cool).
Do not underestimate the Bush Family.
Redshirt
@ricky: Sweet link bro!
jamick6000
JEB BUSH’S REAL NAME ISN’T EVEN JEB, IT’S John Ellis Bush, does that blow your mind or what?
JasonF
When it comes to family associations, Americans are, by and large, a relatively fair and open-minded people. We elected Billy Carter’s brother, Roger Clinton’s brother, Ron Reagan’s dad, Neil Bush’s brother and dad, and even the son of a genuine Kenyan marxist. It doesn’t matter how much people hate George W. Bush — they are not going to refuse his brother a fair chance to make his case for the Oval Office.
JasonF
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
The Adamses — father and son
The Harrisons — grandfather and grandson
The Roosevelts — fifth cousins (but in a close knit family)
The Bushes — father and son
Ben Cisco
@PeakVT: HA! Love a history (of the future) buff…
Nemo_N
It just occurred to me that he might very well change his name to Jeb Smith and the media would run with it, pretending he is not related to W at all.
MeDrewNotYou
@PeakVT: An hour late, but I see what you did there!
Valdivia
but important pundits told me he was going to be a force to contend with!
ricky
@Redshirt:
As somebody said in another comment, “chick peas..is a legume, not a plant.” To me, nuts is/are nuts whether they be genetically engineered or from the natural hatch.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@JasonF:
Oops, I forgot about the Harrisons, so that makes 3. I still don’t count TR and FDR; 5th cousins is stretching it a bit IMHO, and it is really hard to argue that family connections played a role linking the two different Roosevelt administrations.
Compared with the number of well connected families who might have formed a political dynasty but didn’t try, or who tried and failed, it isn’t a very impressive list.
Calouste
You mean people who mostly got their position via family connections admiring someone who got his position via family connections?
It really beats me as well.
Suffern ACE
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: But there are a lot of political families. Kennedys, La Follates, Rockefellers, Simpsons, Bushs, Humphreys, Tafts, Cuomos. Fortunately, with the exception of the Tafts, they seem to burn out after a two-three generations.
Roger Moore
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Three. You might have missed the Harrisons because they were grandfather and grandson rather than father and son.
ricky
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Good call. Despite what Jason said about the Roosevelts they weren’t really that close and since FDR screwed up so badly, there hasn’t been anyone from a Knit family nominated, much less elected.
Captain C
To be fair to the cocktail weenie crowd, when you’ve swallowed enough of Boy Blunder’s emissions to create a small army of golems (despite tons of clear evidence that this was a bad idea), you have a lot invested in pretending that he was pretty good after all, and that you’re ahead of the curve in saying so.
Calouste
@Roger Moore:
George W. Bush is a remote cousin of Franklin Pierce, the 14th President, via his mother. From one alcoholic, incompetent President to another.
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
If that’s the criteria, Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are 8th cousins.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: four, if you count the Roosevelts, fifth cousins, and Eleanor was Teddy’s niece
Did Princess Dumbass the “Kingmaker” (Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angel, Ken Buck, whoever ran against Begich and Lisa Murkowski) even have a part in the Willard Convention? Did she speak on the big stage?
rikyrah
Said it before, will say it again:
How bad a President was George W. Bush?
The country elected a BLACK MAN as President.
in writing this, I take absolutely nothing away from the magnificent candidate that was Senator Barack Obama…but, Black people do not get opportunities when the getting is good. ….
been Black in America longer than 3 days.
rikyrah
the funniest thing about Shrub is that the GOP just pretends that he wasn’t President…it’s been fascinating to watch.
Bokonon
Come on – there is no mystery here. There are some Americans whose opinions counts much more than other Americans. You know … REAL Americans. Red state Americans. NASCAR Americans. The kind that threaten media boycotts based on what they hear from Limbaugh or right wing pressure groups.
Not those coastal people whose advertising dollars the media takes for granted.
kc
It really isn’t fair, when you think of all the reasons there are to detest Jeb that are completely independent of his brother and father.
Chris
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
There’s a popular view among our upper classes that sees politicians as highly paid servants, and politics in general as being beneath them (putting themselves on display for the rabble, actually applying for jobs that require their approval? Yech). Not universal, but not unusual either. A lot of 1%ers would rather own the person on the throne than sit on the throne themselves; you get all the power with none of the responsibility.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Chris:
And to go with that, done properly public service is hard grinding work, for which if you are lucky you get at least a modest share of public ridicule and hatred to follow you around for the rest of your natural life and if you are unlucky you end up a beloved martyr and they put your face on the coinage, which is small consolation because you aren’t around to appreciate the eulogies.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: But if you include Congress, the dynasties include Bush, Gore, Clinton, Roosevelt, Bayh, Rockefeller, etc., etc.
Maude
George W.Bush spent $86,000 on phone calls last year,that the taxpayers paid for. Who’s talking to him?
Evolving Deep Southerner
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Compared to the number of presidents we’ve had, the number of families who’ve done two-fers is actually impressive.
But, you know, it’s not that hard to understand. It’s like when my redneck brethren talk about how NASCAR talent “runs in families.” To which I always point out “Um, dude, it’s not like other sports, where most anyone can go play Little League or whatever. You’ve got to have a fucking car to race. And unless you’re in a ‘racing family,’ they don’t exactly grow on trees. I might be able to out-drive Tony Stewart, but I’d never know, ’cause nobody would let me near a fucking race car.”
EconWatcher
@kc:
Chris Rock had a great riff along those lines, around the time when it looked certain that either Hillary or Obama would be the next president:
“Man, that George Bush, he f’ed up. He f’ed up so bad, he made it hard for a white man to run for president. Voters are saying, we’ll take the woman, we’ll take the black guy, whatever. Just not another of those white guys.”
Chris
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Also true. And it’s still true even if it’s not “done properly;” even if you see the government only as a tool of your social class, politics is still hard work.
Which perhaps explains why Republican presidents are happy to leave the actual governing to their cabinets. But even if you’re from that school of thought, the simple fact of campaigning is hard and not always pleasant work. (The Romneys discovered that to their displeasure, which explains Mitt and especially Ann’s bitchy comments to the effect that the public was being too nosy).
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Evolving Deep Southerner:
The number of positions involved is huge once you go below the level of the WH. Just for starters each state has 2 Senate seats plus a governorship. That’s between 13 x 3 = 39 and 50 x 3 = 150 different top-tier spots at any given time, depending on which period you are talking about, and we haven’t even started with the US House of Representatives yet, much less state legislatures or the mayoralty of major cities.
I’m not saying we don’t have political dynasties. We do. But the frequency with which our top spots is occupied by members of them just doesn’t strike me as being a first order problem with the US system of government. There are a lot of other bigger things that we could improve on, and if we have an in-breeding problem in the govt., then it is even worse in other places that also impact public policy. I have two words for you: Luke Russert.
Lurking Canadian
@Chris: I was for Ned Stark until he torpedoed the public option.
Maude
@Evolving Deep Southerner:
It smacks of royalty. Makes me shiver.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Name another media dynasty. And while you’re at it, do your same exponential math on the media and see what number of possibilities you arrive at with regard to secondary and tertiary relationships.
All I’m saying is that when it comes to politics, it’s “run in the family” way more than “anti-monarchy” philosophy would lead one to believe.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Well, we had a Bush, a Clinton, a Bush, and now a huge contingent assuming that Obama is just going to be an interregnum caretakership before the next Clinton.
Would you agree the trend seems to be accelerating?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Evolving Deep Southerner:
If Hillary runs and wins in 2016 then yes, I’d agree we have a trend.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I’m waiting to see what Chelsea does.
David Koch
@Maude:
It was long distance to his business partners, the Bin Ladens. That, and 1-900 numbers trying to find a friend.
mclaren
I’ve been singing this song ever since Dubya slunk out of the Oval Office leaving his unerasable slime trail, but the commenters on this forum don’t seem to get it.
They should hark back to Jeb’s efforts to float the idea of running for the senate. Not president, mind you just the senate. The stink that caused was worse than a sarin gas attack.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
NORM!!
Jebediah
@SiubhanDuinne:
Morning Woody!