Jeb Bush may need to get over his family's traditional squeamishness about personal attacks https://t.co/bA3rV33l5c pic.twitter.com/dkGURlSpk6
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) December 14, 2015
Family that brought us Willie Horton, attacked McCain's daughter & impugned a combat veteran's record are squeamish? https://t.co/vy2noNBF3O
— Adam (@aalali44) December 15, 2015
Because of the SSL issues referenced in the last post, I can’t post links properly, but I wanted to state for the record that this article (Debate Offers Jeb Bush a Chance to Take the Family Gloves Off: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/politics/republican-debate-jeb-bush.html) reaches some kind of apotheosis of the Grey Lady’s inability to call things by their proper names:
… The Republican debate on Tuesday in Las Vegas provides Mr. Bush with a highly anticipated platform to forcefully take on his rivals. After faltering in a previous debate exchange with Senator Marco Rubio, Mr. Bush — perhaps more than anyone else onstage — might be compelled to prove he has the strength and passion not just to lead the nation, but to hold his own in the aggressive Colosseum of modern politics.
That could be tricky for a man whose family code is one of polite gentility and even bipartisanship, not angry yelling and boorishness.
That hardball, in-the-trenches style of politics, said friends, aides and scholars of the three men, goes against the ethos of the blue-blooded dynasty with roots in New England, where manners and decorum were ingrained not just at the dinner table but in the halls and playing fields of Andover.
“Even the most visceral of the Bushes, George W. Bush, has been averse to that kind of pugnation,” said Robert Draper, the author of “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush.” “The charitable view of it is manners — it’s better not to flash anger and swing elbows. The less charitable view is it derives from a kind of superiority that Bushes don’t fight in alleys.”
Ron Kaufman, who served in the first President Bush’s administration and is a longtime friend of the family, said Jeb Bush in particular was more of a serious-minded policy aficionado than a political fighter…
Even for a dedicated professional coatholder like Ron Kaufman, that is a lot of bullshit to cram into one sentence.
***********
Apart from the ever-enjoyable spectable of REPUBS IN DISARRAY!, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Peak NYT MealymouthPost + Comments (135)