One Bush is Like Another: Jeb Doesn’t Know. Jeb Doesn’t Care

Last updated on April 15th, 2018 at 12:44 pm

So we have got Jeb Bush just making stuff up at this point, like his whole spiel about traditional marriage being an anti-poverty measure, or being Hispanic, or heck, once it become politically inconvenient to do so, not supporting his brother’s war in Iraq.

Am I alone, or does his campaign so far remind you of the late and unlamented failure of Mitt Romney 2012 run? I’m thinking right now, based on the evidence available, that like Mitt, Jeb is institutionally incapable of saying the right thing, and worse, of knowing what that right thing is.

In this, he reminds me also a lot of his older brother, who needed Dick Cheney to tell him what to think. Look at where Dubya is now, without Cheney, painting dogs and himself in the shower. This, more than his White House days, is probably the measure of the man.

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There is even a Jeb Bush Young Socialist meme, which is kind of entertaining if untrue. The Bush campaign says it’s not true, at any rate, and that Jeb “has no idea” where that story came from, which is kinda funny too, coming from a guy who “has no idea” about a lot of things.

We can believe the one about him smoking a lot of dope though, just like his brother. It doesn’t take a passenger jet crashing into a skyscraper to make Jeb look dazed and confused.

He admitted to his use of drugs to the Boston Globe. Which, as with most Republicans, explains why he doesn’t want anyone else to use pot, even for medical purposes. It is easy to imagine him still mad toking before public appearances, given the dopey things coming out of his mouth.

Like 2013’s “immigrants are more fertile.” You can’t make this stuff up. Or this year’s NADA convention, where these words actually came out of his mouth: “The 40 percent of the people that have come here illegally, came with a legal visa and overstayed their bounds. We ought to be able to figure out where they are and politely ask them to leave.”

There’s an immigration policy for you: please go home. Sounds like New Jersey.

Even the traditional marriage thing is off, given rumors about his own marriage infidelities. Jeb said in denial back in 2001 that, “Lies were spread by gossip. Sadly, it’s reached the point where it’s being written about.” But heck, we write about crazier things said and done by Republicans that are demonstrably true, every single day.

And sadly, having an affair while espousing family values would not put him outside of the Religious Right/Republican norm. Heck, it may be the only genuine thing about him.

Even so, Jeb has to be the establishment Republican’s choice of candidate, simply because he’s probably the only one who doesn’t think God has chosen him to run. If he’s chosen to run, he knows perfectly well who will be behind him, and it won’t be the Lawd Gawd Ahmighty.

It will be a couple of guys named Koch.

Now Jeb can deny that he is auditioning for the Koch brothers, but we know perfectly well that with the kind of money they announced they’re spending in 2016 to buy POTUS (and indirectly then, SCOTUS), that every single Republican candidate is auditioning for the Koch brothers.

Jeb was adamant, and in the process, trying to make us believe that stuff I told you yesterday isn’t true, that there is some debate in the GOP as to the party’s direction. He told MSNBC in April,

“If I go beyond the consideration to be an active candidate, my hope is to garner as much support across the whole spectrum of the Republican party.”

Sure, the Kochs are important and all, their network being an “important part of any coalition to win the primary, so I don’t view it as auditioning for sure. But my intention is, if I’m a candidate, I will reach out to every sector of the party.”

Every sector….what sectors are those? The Tea Party has become virtually undistinguishable from the Religious Right and both are in bed with the corporate interests, so where are those sectors? Or does he really just mean both base and establishment?

This is something different, folks. Mitt didn’t need to be bought. He wrong his own weight in gold out of the hard working hands of honest Americans. He didn’t need the Koch’s stolen dollars.

So far, you have to think Jeb’s audition isn’t going well. If we’re not already there, we’ve got to be close to the point – as it did with Rick Perry – where somebody says to somebody else, “Don’t let this guy speak anymore.”

The Telegraph asked the other day if Jeb really wants to be president, or if, like Ted Kennedy in 1979, he feels obligated to run.

We can’t know the answer to that because Jeb himself probably doesn’t know the answer to that, any more than he knows if invading Iraq was a good idea, or if he’s Hispanic, or how having kids when you’re in poverty will somehow lift you out of poverty when, as anyone who has had them knows, kids are expensive.

Shades of his brother, the motto for Jeb could easily be, “Jeb Doesn’t know. Jeb doesn’t care.” It is hard to believe Jeb Bush really wants to be president, with the things he says. Maybe it’s just that he’s missing a Dick Cheney of his own.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

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.