Jeb Bush: "There were mistakes made in Iraq, for sure" VIDEO: http://t.co/P6rnoKOHOe pic.twitter.com/84C3oEMz1I
— Tim Hanrahan (@TimJHanrahan) February 18, 2015
Jeb Bush has rolled out his “shock & awe” campaign launch, and the guys at Politico are so excited they may have had to change their underwear. Report from the Chicago Council site:
… In the most-noted passage, the former Florida governor said his foreign policy would not clone those of his father, George H.W. Bush, or his brother, George W. Bush…
Bush spoke to a lunchtime audience of 750 people at Chicago’s Fairmont Hotel. Much of his speech took aim at President Barack Obama, who also gave his first major foreign policy speech as a presidential candidate to a Council audience here eight years ago.
Interestingly, Bush’s speech touched several of the themes that Obama struck then—the need for US global engagement, for restoration of American stature in the world, and for increased defense spending. In that speech, Obama criticized the “bluster and bombast” of the sitting president, whose brother returned the criticism here…
If only the world had been flash-frozen in amber for the last thirty years, and a good Republican establishmentarian could campaign on continuing the “morning in America” theme — why, Jeb would be as good as President already!
And that’s exactly how his Shock’n’Awe handlers have decided to present him: as a bulky figurehead facing a blank slate, where nobody remembers those other two President Bushes, much less all the changes that have happened in the larger world since the GOP’s dream campaign against Walter Mondale…
would have been smarter for Jeb Bush to wait to give this speech until he had actually developed some distinct ideas
— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) February 18, 2015
…[I]t is not really journalism to lay out the case that Jeb (!) is completely for sale, and then use it, not to demonstrate that Jeb (!) is selling his ass by the ounce but, rather, to make the case that he is a towering political juggernaut… — Charles P. Pierce
Build time machine, un-invade Iraq in 2003 RT @NickRiccardi: Not hearing Jeb articulate a plan to stop ISIS.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 18, 2015
.@igorvolsky Jeb 2015: "Who's George W. Bush?"
— Billmon (@billmon1) February 18, 2015
Building on his brother's accomplishments, Jeb pulls together a crack foreign policy team.
http://t.co/P2KePMpybz pic.twitter.com/11Jy5f3sPF
— Billmon (@billmon1) February 19, 2015
PsiFighter37
Jeb’s a fucking idiot if he thinks he has a shot in hell of becoming president. Seriously, you have another Clinton v. Bush election – it is quite simple, compare the record of Bill Clinton v. HW and Dumbya and it’s not even a close contest. The idiot son of an asshole (NoFX reference there if you caught it) is going to drag down his brother (who also apparently has trouble pronouncing things correctly) by association, no matter how hard he tries to run away from him.
I hope Woody Johnson and the rest of the idiot big-dollar donors delude themselves into thinking another Bush has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. Burn your billions trying to convince the public to elect another Bush. You already fooled them twice…Americans are dumb, but no way they elect a third Bush to the presidency.
And if this country is dumb enough to do it by some miracle, then I think it’ll be time to bail out and figure out where I should live next.
sharl
In responses below that Weigel tweet are some old school neocon responses, including from some familiar names (bolding is mine):
There are a few more there along those general lines…
Hunter Gathers
The entire family is fucking omnishambles – From Bean To Cup, They Fuck Up.
Ruckus
@PsiFighter37:
If this idiot son gets hisself elected, where would you go? What do you think the odds are that a whole bunch of others would be beating feet out of town with you? So where is it that millions of us could expat our way to? And if we did what do you expect the chances are that jebby would stupidly attack that country? IOW if jebby gets elected we are totally fucked, stay or go.
srv
It doesn’t matter whether Jeb or Hillary wins when 50% of Americans want to invade Syria right now.
Hal
Jeb has spent years defending his brother and he will keep defending through out the primaries. He has no other choice and that is simply going to remind people over and over again to be weary of a third Bush presidency. Jeb will come after Hillary as another legacy, just like him, probably point to her support for the war, but at the end of the day, he won’t be able to make people forget the absolute worse decisions of the Shrub Presidency.
jl
@PsiFighter37:
” And if this country is dumb enough to do it by some miracle, then I think it’ll be time to bail out and figure out where I should live next. ”
Saw there is a post office job open in Antarctica (for real, not a joke).
GOP can take comfort that Mitt has indicated will be available if Jeb! stumbles.
I don’t get the “shock ‘n’ awe’ stuff. Politicians talking drab dowdy nothing mumbo-jumbo, while sitting on dowdy chairs in front of generic blue dowdy drab ‘Blah Blah Council’ backdrops is shock ‘n’ awe? I guess for the Politico and WaPo set, if there are enough rich people there.
Ruckus
@Hal:
Actually jebby will give all of us chances everyday to remind the idiots of how fucked up the royal family named bush is. Which of course will spur on at least 27% of the population to back him unequivocally.
PsiFighter37
@Ruckus: I suppose that’s fair.
I take comfort that if a Bush is on the ballot again, liberals – even firebaggers – will not be dumb enough to let a member of that family set foot in the White House again. The GOTV of trying to get the first woman elected + keeping the Bushes out should pretty much fuel itself (although I know it doesn’t…gotta hit the pavement to make sure).
Violet
Jeb makes Mitt Romney look like he’s got a personality.
grandpa john
@sharl: I think that sane people would say that the next is formulating a comprehensive plan of how to accomplish her childish emotional bleatings. I never cease to despair of the state of the union when our media is rife with similar idiots.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a part of me thinks its unfair to blame Jebbie for Dumbya, but shit like this
Should be immediate disqualifiers
Luthe
@PsiFighter37: The other thing about a possible Clinton v. Bush (again!) is that Hillary has some residual Obama mojo left from her SoS stint, while Jebby’s always going to have his brother as an albatross around his neck. Sure, the wingers will scream BENGHAZI!, but no one outside the 27%ers will care.
Plus, Hillary won’t make Gore’s mistake and run from Obama’s legacy. Hell, the way he’s trolling the GOP these days, Obama will be out stumping for Hillary every chance he gets.
Anne Laurie
@Hal:
Y’know, it rankles my feminist soul that Hilary Clinton is a notoriously hard-working woman who made a (politically) good choice in partners & spent the next forty years laboring to advance a liberal agenda. Whereas JEB! got born to the right parents, and has coasted on that mighty achievement ever since.
But since Hillary’s partner spent eight years in the Oval Office, idiots dismiss her as “just another legacy, like Jeb.”
If Chelsea ends up running for president — probably against some third- or fourth- generation Bush or Romney — then they can bitch about “legacy politicians”!
jl
@sharl:
Looks like the reactionaries see a chance to whip up a fury among the fearful and the dupes. ‘Kill Them!’
Fact that the notorious peacenik State Department spokesperson Harf said, enthusiastically “We’re killing a lot them. And we’re going to keep killing more of them”. makes no difference.
BTW, looks like rightwing quotes used against Harf are made up. Surprise surprise.
Hrrrmmm
‘ Did The Daily Caller make up this a [sic] phony quote? ‘
talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/hrrrmm
And if raven is around, he might be interested in watching. It features a bravura performance of fear, incoherence, panic and self-centered self-righteous tantrum spittle action by Matthews. He does calm down and say a couple of sensible things at the end, though.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jl: I’m so old that I remember when John Connally and Phil Gramm were each going to be President because they raised so much money so early:
Texas, check. Lots of money, check. Lack of passion by supporters, check.
Plus, in JEB’s case… Terri Schiavo, check. Disenfranchising black voters, check. Board membership on large banks, heathcare conglomerates, etc., check.
Plus… He’s a Bush. And based on his foreign-policy speech and discussion, not an especially bright one.
His inevitability seems very, er, avoidable.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@jl: I very belatedly answered your question to me downstairs.
Hal
@Anne Laurie: That’s the thing about HRC having a legacy. You can’t really criticize her for supporting her husband and raising her daughter all the while putting her own ambitions largely on hold for decades. That’s the kind of scenario I’m sure millions of women in America can relate to, and won’t in any way think of it in the same way that Jeb comes across as another Bush taking a shot at the Presidency. Combine that with her own accomplishments and there is no comparison. Also, in so far as the legacy side of things, reminding people of the economic success of the Clinton years isn’t exactly going to be a winning strategy and no one cares about any of the scandals of her husband outside of die hard Republicans who won’t vote for any Dem anyway.
danielx
@PsiFighter37:
Do you know, I said exactly the same thing about Ronald Reagan in 1980.
As someone once said, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Case in point (one of many): re-election of Sam Brownback. By any estimation a complete incompetent, a fuckup of biblical proportions, and was known to be prior to his re-election. But Kansans pressed the button for him anyway – hey, that Laffer thing is going to kick in any day now and Kansas City is going to look like Dubai without the fucking A-rabs!
A lot of people don’t really want to believe that Republicans are….what they are. Although Jeb! is a first class wingnut and a vindictive son of a bitch, more so even than his idiot brother, by comparison with, say, Ted Cruz he comes across as almost reasonable. Plus there’s no place like American politics for making a (family) comeback if you can make the right reasonable noises to enough people and have enough money behind you, the latter of which is never going to be a problem for a Bush.
I don’t want to see him or any of the rest of the R’s clown car occupants in the Oval Office, but it’s not impossible it could happen. A lot stranger things have happened; I never thought Jeb’s idiot brother would end up in the White House on the basis of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision either.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Didn’t BinP say he worked for the postal service? I may be misremembering. But if he did, it sounds like an excellent opportunity.
FlipYrWhig
I think the word “lummox” was coined just to refer to John Ellis Bush.
jl
@Gin & Tonic: thanks, it clarified things. WP swallowed my reply for awhile.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: Is he physically large enough to be a full-fledged lummox? I could look it up, but I can’t really be arsed to do so…
sharl
grandpa john @11:
jl @15:
So far there aren’t many surprises in who is showing up for the newest neocon cheerleader try-outs. Instapundit is the same overcompensating insecure male he seems to have always been. And Jennifer Rubin is so predictable that WaPo should save a few bucks and replace her with a custom-developed Neocon/Hasbaran bot; I swear that the guy who created Olivia Taters would find such a task easy-peasy by comparison.
What will be more interesting is how the corporate media types trend on the latest saber rattling; folks like Jake Tapper, or the full-timers among the Nice Polite Republicans (NPR). If past performance is any indication, I’m not optimistic.
ETA: Hard to believe that Tapper was actually mentored by the late David Carr, who also gave Ta-Nehisi Coates and a number of other worthy journalists their starts. Eh, can’t win ’em all, I guess.
jl
@sharl:
‘ how the corporate media types trend on the latest saber rattling ‘
Well, since you asked, if you can sit through Matthews, he is sure the ISIS atrocities are humiliating US (US!) the average US citizen, in our faces!. Humiliating US, the average Joe and Jane out their watching the TV, all these killings. And something needs to be done RIGHT NOW, that isn’t being done! What what is that and why NOT!
He talked like a nutcase until the last seconds of the piece. That nutcase is respected TV journalist?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: He had an unbelievable closing rant earlier in the week, all about how he imagined the Egypitans in captivity, wondering where are the Americans? Why were we letting this happen? As if impoverished Egyptians grew up watching the same WWII movies he did, and reacted the same way. He seems to have some absurd fantasy of corn-fed, square-jawed young GIs marching into the dessert singing “Over There” as little kids wave American flags and yell “Welcome GIs!”
sharl
@jl: Ugh, forgot all about Tweety. I kinda-sorta think the “respect” accorded him is probably directly proportional to his ratings and the nature of his audience (e.g., their perceived political clout). But I honestly don’t know; he clearly gets off on all this, but I just don’t know how many viewers out there find his on-air political orgasms appealing or convincing.
Jacks mom
I don’t believe it. I don’t think that those many people think we should sacrifice that many of our citizens to that cause.
Is it possible that this has been reported and people read it and think they should think this way because the survey says 50-60% of Americans say they Think this way?
Murica!! Fuck yeah
Chris
On foreign policy at least, Jeb is going to spend this entire election trying to hit all the same notes that his brother did, while simultaneously trying to convince the public that this time it’ll be different.
(The American public being what it is, this isn’t quite as ludicrous a strategy as it sounds).
Villago Delenda Est
If Jeb is serious about being elected to the presidency, he must pledge that he will ship his shithead brother (not Neil or Marvin…the other one), the Dark Lord, and von Rumsfailed to The Hague for their just disposition as war criminals.
Otherwise, forget about it, Jeb.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jacks mom: Most Americans are more than happy to send other people’s kids to go die in the sands for the cause.
This is why we need a motherfucking draft, with no exemptions. Then people will start taking war seriously. Right now it’s a form of entertainment.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m pretty sure those poor Egyptian bastards were desperate to have someone come charging through the door to rescue them, but I doubt they would have been very picky about who it was.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If the Arab world ever had any fantasies of American liberators being good for their countries, Iraq put an end to them forever.
These people really haven’t got a clue how the U.S. is perceived from the outside, which is one thing when they’re just sticking their middle finger up at the rest of the world and talking American Exceptionalism, but utterly surreal when they switch to their “think how the rest of the world perceives this!” track.
Chris
@jl:
I love the notion that that’s why we should go on a bombing spree. Because we’re feeling humiliated. (Or should be, or something).
To take a “recent” situation in which the U.S. actually was legitimately humiliated, I have mad respect for Carter for not resorting to violence in the Iran hostage crisis, except once in the context of a rescue attempt. I’m told that one of my grandparents (a career diplomat no less, and not an American either) watched the whole crisis unfold and thought that the U.S. should’ve gone to war, because no nation-state can allow itself to be treated like that in defiance of all international law. Me, upon hearing that opinion: “And that would’ve helped the hostages how?” Apparently, Carter agreed with me. Because he did, we eventually got the hostages back alive; we’re still the most powerful nation in the world; Iran still has the same regime, struggling to stay on top of popular discontent, surrounded by enemies, and no real threat to anyone. In short, life went on, and far better than it would have if we’d gone to war.
(There are legitimate reasons for going to war. “I feel humiliated and I need to punch something until I’ve reasserted my manliness” isn’t one of them).
If that happened again today (not just a spontaneous attack like Benghazi, but a spectacle that dragged on for hundreds of days with the whole world watching), I don’t know that any president would have the balls to not fight back. I’m really grateful to Carter that he did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: You have far more pacifist tendencies than I do. I agree with your grandparent. Pointing out to a country that one doesn’t fuck with accredited diplomats is a fairly standard thing. And ensuring that very shitty things happen if one violates that rule is also a fairly standard thing. IMO, Carter got it wrong. YMMV.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not a pacifist. As I said, I’m good with the rescue attempt – that had the specific aim of freeing the diplomats (though it apparently wasn’t very well put together) and wouldn’t have cared if they’d had to shoot people in the process, which I have no doubt they would have. Going to war would not have done that, would have had no immediate result other than getting the hostages killed, and then adding American soldiers to the mix, whether it would’ve done any good to make up for that is up in the air and, IMO, very dubious.
We got them back. Alive. I’m good with that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: We got them back because Reagan made promises. Not because anything legitimate happened. Getting them back doesn’t count.
Citizen_X
@sharl:
Oh, for fuck’s sake. If it’s so goddam easy, just parachute Jennifer fucking Rubin in there with a rifle. Easy peasy, Jen. We’ll save a seat for you at dinner!
It reminds me of the neocons in 2003 saying, “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.” And how did that work out, Real Men? Oh yeah, with Tehran laughing their asses off at our strategic idiocy.
feebog
@Omnes Omnibus:
If we had gone in with guns blazing everyone of those hostages would have been murdered. Yeah, we would have kicked the ass, but then what, reinstate the Shah?
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Omnes Omnibus:
We got them back because of negotiations. Evil negotiations, but negotiations nonetheless.
That’s always a fun one to throw in Reaganites’ faces, particularly since those behind-the-scenes negotiations led directly to the Iran-Contra debacle.
Mandalay
@Chris:
In January a US embassy car (containing two diplomats) was hit with 89 bullets in Yemen. Amazingly, nobody was reported as being hurt, and I suppose it could be viewed as humiliating if you have a really warped perspective. But last week our embassy quietly closed, and the State Department urged every American who was still there to leave ASAP.
No rhetoric, no reprisals, no fuss, no fanfare, and nobody got hurt. Hardly anybody in the USA knows about it, and few care.
That’s how we should handle conflict in the Middle East.
Keith G
Well gosh, it’s good to see we have already run the 2016 election.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Welcome to Dumb And Dumberer Do Washington.
SRW1
It’s very hard to envision a JEB presidential campaign without Iraq becoming THE foreign policy topic, a) because of W’s splendid adventure there, and b) because of the question of what to do about ISIS.
If that happens, JEB’s ‘mistakes were made isn’t gonna cut it’, because it satisfies nobody. JEB is going to realize that and will be going full steam with the claim that Iraq would have worked out if Obama hadn’t cut and run. JEB will also commit to putting boots on the ground in Iraq, Syria (and if need be possibly even Libya) to eradicate ISIS, something ISIS will be so kind to help him with by producing beheading videos on a regular basis.
If JEB wins, the US will be going into Iraq and Syria, ostensibly defeat ISIS and Assad on the battle field, and will then spend until the end of JEB’s second term to mediate sectarian strife in the futile attempt to hold Iraq and possibly even Syria and Libya together.
In the end, the American people and the US military will be exhausted, US coffers will have taken another hit, but the MIC will have had a hell of a party.
Tokyokie
I remember very well how, during the runup to the 2000 primaries, W. sucked all the air out of the room far ahead of time by rounding up all the big donors. One event in particular stands out for me: Presumptive rival Pat Buchanan was the scheduled speaker for a meeting of an independent oilmen’s group in Wichita Falls, and the event was a near sellout. But then the Bushies learned about it, and within 48 hours, pretty much everybody had cancelled their RSVPs. Like Buchanan giving a speech to a private group in Wichita Falls would have made any real difference.
So, because it’s Jebbie’s turn, the loyal Bush family retainers are reflexively trying the same thing again, because it worked so well 16 years ago. Except they don’t seem to understand that the Koch Brothers bought a controlling interest in the Republican Party since then, and the Kochs aren’t accepting the inevitability of Jeb! in the same way the Bush syncophants do. And the Kochs’ perceptions of reality mean a whole lot more than do the Bushes’, because the Kochs, not the Bushes, are now the Republican royal family.
Zinsky
@PsiFighter37: I am quite sure that you are wrong and that a plurality of Americans are just dumb enough to get “fooled again”. You have to realize two things here: (1) Some people are so into their “tribal identity”, they would vote for Satan, if he had an (R) behind his name, and (2) Some people are so goddamn dumb that if two synapses fire while they are in the voting booth and they “recognize” the name Bush, they will pull that lever or mark that oval on the ballot. There are some real low-functioning people out there. Go walk around a Wal-Mart someday, if you don’t believe me!
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: I have actually occasionally seen cases of people in civil-war-torn developing countries say things in international media like “why isn’t the US taking out our bad guys?”
It boggles my mind. Do people know what happens when the Americans come in?
Matt McIrvin
@Hal: If Jeb’s campaign guys are smart, they’ll turn the bug into a feature. Make people nostalgic for the George W. Bush presidency, probably through war fever. He’s already been partly rehabilitated in Americans’ minds. Half the people I talk to are already conflating ISIS with the people who did the Paris and Copenhagen shootings and bloviating about how we should come to our senses and kill them all.
By late 2016, we may well have a majority wanting to go back to Bush and back to war. And Hillary Clinton may have no choice but to out-bloodthirsty Jeb.
Keith G
I fear that those writing off Jeb Bush are not thinking clearly. He is going to mount a very serious and highly competent campaign.
Denali
Its very disheartening to see the air time given Jeb, given the disasters his family brought to this country. The power of money, connections, and tribalism have never been so obvious. People want to vote for someone who they feel comfortable with – that, as has been pointed out, was Reagan’s great asset. If the Koch brothers do in the end support Bush, considering the real possibility of gaming the polling, there will be no contest. So many people do not like HRC, that the even appeal of a woman president may not be enough to overcome their distaste.
Why has the media not covered the HSBC story?
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t buy the whole “they freed the hostages because Bravely Brave Sir Reagan bravely promised he’d bomb the country if they didn’t” narrative any more than “Reagan won the Cold War.” Reagan’s own record in dealing with hostage takings isn’t especially encouraging either in terms of deterring the enemy or bringing the hostages back alive.
“Not because anything legitimate happened?” I don’t even know what this means. The only “legitimate” action would’ve been for the Iranian government to release them immediately and unconditionally, but clearly that wasn’t happening. So they negotiated. According to what I’ve read of the crisis, it might even have worked if Iraq hadn’t invaded Iran in the middle of negotiations, something the Iranians got hopping mad about and interpreted as a U.S. plot, which set the talking back by months.
“Getting them back doesn’t count.” Yeah… okay.