While President Obama was in Selma displaying his love for America, Jeb Bush was in Iowa displaying his own simplistic notion that what makes America great is its ability to bully the world, saying Friday night that Obama is “the first president since World War II who does not believe that American power is a force for good.”
Yes, Jeb Bush can look at an Iraq wracked by civil war and marauding barbarians, and somehow imagine that America power is a force for good.
He is another Republican who sees the world in either/or, black and white, good vs. evil terms. I would like to say “Candidate X” is the first Republican since World War II who doesn’t view the world in this way, but that’s not going to happen. They all do.
Let’s face it: Nuance of thought isn’t conducive to creating fear and anger in a mob.
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Personally, I’d prefer a president who, like Obama, sees the American people as a force for good in the world.
And remember what I said about the right continuing to make things up about Hillary?
“There’s a lot of things we need to restore. This President — and by the way his former secretary of state — have let us down in this regard.”
Really. Hillary let us down. Not his brother. You know, George W. Bush, who lied about weapons of mass destruction, and who invaded Iraq for no more reason than Hitler had to invade Poland in 1939 – because he wanted to.
On Saturday, Bush joined what seems like half the Republican Party in what CNN calls “yet another cattle call for possible 2016 candidates” at an agricultural event – the 2015 Iowa Ag Summit, where even Lindsey Graham came out from hiding under his bed from ISIL to answer a few questions.
CNN describes the scene:
With a John Deere tractor towering near the stage, each candidate sat on stage for a 20-minute Q&A with Bruce Rastetter, an agribusiness entrepreneur and major Republican donor in Iowa. The audience of close to 1,200 was comprised largely of farmers and other leaders in the agriculture industry.
It is hard to see this as the place Republican kings are made. But this is where Bush took his stand against 2007’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the law which requires that gasoline contain 10 percent renewable fuels – in Iowa, corn.
“I would suggest to you that, ultimately, whether it’s ethanol or any other alternative fuel, renewable or otherwise, the market’s ultimately going to have to decide this.”
Just like the Republican Party’s free market solution to our health care. We can have it – if we can get it.
I wonder if Bush ever actually shops in grocery stores. I’ve yet to see a package of beef that tells me in which state the cow-donors lived. Given the state of federal regulation of our foods, his “beef” might come from almost anywhere and be composed of almost anything.
This led CBC to ask if Jeb will have a corn problem, but why is corn news compared to human lives? That is what we are really talking about with regards to Jeb Bush and his fellow Republican hopefuls. And what Jeb assuredly has is a human problem, not a corn problem.
He supports Common Core, too, setting him apart from widespread Republican opposition to the education standards because, stupidly, these Republicans think they are federally mandated – you know, like RFS.
Apparently Bush realizes Common Core did not spring like a monster from the imagined cesspool of D.C. politics, and said Friday,
I know what I believe. I believe in high standards that require critical thinking skills that are assessed faithfully, where you have reform around it so that we have rising student achievement. And I’m passionate about it.
Oh no. Your brother believes what he believed too. Like “Mission Accomplished.” Here we are a decade later and ISIL is destroying our heritage at one ancient site after another.
We built that, America. Or, more accurately speaking, we demolished it.
Do you ever wonder if it rankles him to be behind college dropout Scott Walker in the polls? Maybe not. His own thinking doesn’t seem all that critical.
After all, he likes critical thinking except where it comes to foreign policy, where the simple fact of American military might equals a world made safe for a democracy denied the American people themselves.
What’s interesting is that these Republicans, including Bush, think it’s wrong for the federal government to mandate anything – including an education, breathable air and drinkable water and eatable food – but that we should be bossing around the rest of the world.
They don’t see any problem with that at all.
And for Bush of all people to be attacking anyone else’s foreign policy after what his brother did not only to America but the world through his “cowboy diplomacy” is nothing short of obscene. President Obama, the man he attacked, as spent his entire presidency trying to undo the damage George W. Bush did to America.
President Obama yesterday looked to an America that is an America for all Americans, not just a few, whatever their skin color and regardless of who they might love. An inclusive America. Bush offers us a dystopian future you’d rather see in video games and movies.
The problem is, you can turn a video game or a movie off, but you can’t turn off reality, and reality is a shattered economy, a destroyed Iraq overcome with civil war, with a marauding enemy that makes the Huns look like welcome visitors.
Bush did that. Jeb’s brother. The guy from whom Jeb has recruited all his advisers. The guy Jeb plans to emulate if he can get into the White House.
You know, so we can revisit those “good old days” of America as a rogue nation, mandating to the world a skewed sense of right and wrong, where America is always a force for good, no matter how much evil it does.
It’s a shame Jeb’s broken moral compass won’t mandate he stay in Iowa. Until he can prove he can be a force for good on the small stage – and he did not in Florida – he should stay away from the big stage.
And not because he is a Republican in name only, but because he is a Bush with all the Bush baggage we’ve come to know – and have good reason to fear.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
