DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: hnumpah on August 09, 2015, 08:31:13 AM
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The media is ignoring this telling Jeb Bush gaffe
Updated by Dylan Matthews on August 7, 2015, 11:10 a.m. ET
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower once famously said of George Bush Sr., "He is a man who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." There has never been a better illustration of that attitude in the Bush family than this verbal slip-up Jeb Bush made in last night's Republican presidential debate, when challenged by Fox News moderator Bret Baier to address "the real concern in this country about dynastic politics:
"I've got a record in Florida. I'm proud of my dad, and I'm certainly proud of my brother. In Florida, they called me Jeb, because I earned it."
Jeb is called Jeb because his name is John Ellis Bush, a name given to him by George H. W. and Barbara Bush. He is claiming that he "earned" something that was literally bestowed upon him by his parents. In hindsight, he probably meant to use the "earned" line later in his answer, where he bragged about being known as "Veto Corleone" because of his 2,500 line-item vetoes of spending programs. But intentional or not, it's not a very compelling way to rebut concerns about dynastic politics.
More than a bungled answer, this seems to be a genuine blind spot. Just before Nameghazi, Bush contended that he faces "a higher bar" as a presidential aspirant due to his family connections, when the reality — obvious to anyone but a member of his immediate family — is that there's no way an ex-governor who left office in 2007 would be leading in fundraising or endorsements absent a vast political network bequeathed to him by his father and brother. Just ask George Pataki.
“He is claiming that he "earned" something that was literally bestowed upon him by his parents”
The rest of his answer was a rote recitation of some highlights from his tenure as Florida governor: tax cuts and balanced budgets every year, expanded fiscal reserves, a AAA bond rating, the spending vetoes, 1.3 million jobs created. Sure, fine. But how exactly does this set him apart from his brother?
Jeb Bush put zero distance between himself and his brother
You know who else signed tax cuts?
After all, Jeb's brother passed big tax cuts, both as president and as governor of Texas, too. Of course Jeb balanced the budget; that's literally a constitutional requirement in Florida. Jeb could not legally submit or sign into law a budget that wasn't balanced.
The spending vetoes aren't a differentiating factor either; the federal government doesn't have a line-item veto whereby presidents can excise specific provisions from budgets. And the jobs brag, if anything, ties him more closely to his brother. For six of Jeb's eight years in office, his brother was president, and one could plausibly argue that George had more effect on the economy of Florida than Jeb did.
Contrast this with what Jeb could've said if he really wanted to differentiate himself from his brother. He could have said that the Iraq war was misconceived and that the US shouldn't engage in nation-building efforts like it in the future. He could have denounced his brother's torture regime. He could have argued that his brother's administration was too lax on Wall Street and embraced reforms like those his primary opponent Rick Perry and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) have promoted. He could have denounced No Child Left Behind as a failed experiment in federal control over education. He could have criticized his brother's Civil Rights Division for hacking away at the right to vote.
But he can't do any of that. He has already gotten into trouble for goofing and saying that he would've invaded Iraq even knowing what we know now, before clarifying and saying he would've invaded knowing what we knew then, which is still pretty bad. He has also surrounded himself with advisers from his brother's administration, including dyed-in-the-wool neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Paula Dobriansky (not to mention former NSA director and surveillance proponent Michael Hayden).
He can't distance himself from his brother on education because he's also a fervent proponent of an accountability agenda and federally promoted standards. He can't attack his brother on financial regulation because he's heavily reliant on Wall Street for campaign cash. He can't criticize his brother on voting rights because he restricted early voting and purged voter rolls as governor of Florida, and has supported voter ID laws.
Those aren't the only possible lines of differentiation, of course. He could have attacked his brother's administration for spending too much and for adding a costly entitlement in the form of Medicare Part D. He could have lambasted the handling of Hurricane Katrina, comparing it with his widely praised handling of hurricanes in Florida during his tenure. Neither of those contradicts past positions Jeb has taken — and Jeb has even mildly criticized his brother's spending record already.
But when Baier handed him a perfect opportunity to make that contrast again, he refused.
"When you love someone or your brother or your dad, it’s not easy for me to throw them under the bus to make myself look better," Bush said in an interview in June. "I just can’t do that."
In a joint interview with his brother in 2010, he went further: "I am the only Republican that was in office when he was in office as president that never disagreed with him. And I’m not going to start now. 'Til death do us part."
It's a nice familial sentiment. But Bush fatigue is real, and Jeb has to find a way to acknowledge his brother's screw-ups if he's going to have any hope of beating it.
http://www.vox.com/2015/8/7/9116053/republican-debate-jeb-bush
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Great great great....
If we get offered a choice between Clinton fatigue and Bush fatigue voter turnout will hit record lows , even in states where they don't care who you are when you vote.
On the Upside , the low turnout will make cheats easy to catch.
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/03/13/269CF8AD00000578-2993531-image-m-27_1426262028067.jpg)
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/03/13/269B998600000578-2993531-image-a-18_1426261198725.jpg)
(https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/time.jpg?w=340&h=453)
Hmmmm... JEB has not ever made the cover of Time?(https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/20150316-bush-gallery.jpg?quality=65&strip=color&w=600)
Oh there he is , he just hasn't been on the cover of Time by himself. Time made him share the space , as if his importance arises from his connection.
http://nypost.com/2015/07/23/bill-told-hillary-to-run-for-office-instead-of-marrying-him/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/05/just-how-much-money-is-jeb-bush-going-to-raise/
http://time.com/3732647/jeb-bush-cover-story/
http://www.ethiogrio.com/news/world-news/20225-did-time-magazine-just-put-devil-horns-on-hillary-clinton-s-head-subtle-political-jab-has-democrats-seeing-red.html
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I absolutely agree that both the Bush & Clinton fatigue is real & tangible. I would reluctantly support Bush, if he were the GOP nominee, but I'm sure hoping the delegates are not swayed by the name or money, that either bring to the table, as a supposed prerequisite for becoming Commander & Chief
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Jeb had a very poor performance in the debate...Zzzzzz....but the Oligarchy probably still likes him.
We are still a long way from the finish line.
Dr. Carson probably has the highest IQ of any candidate running from either Party.
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Agreed. Here's hoping Carly is invited to the next go around, as she blew away the others in the earlier debate?
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Yes.
She deserves her time.
I hope that there is a good way to let each one of them speak at greater length.
I think that Trump would loose some of his charm if he was speaking longer.
Jeb might explain himself better if he was not trying so hard to be brief .
Carson might prove to have the charm, if he had the time to say something.
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When Carson has had the time to say something, he has said DUMB things... like saying Obamacare was the worst thing since slavery.
Any way you look at it, that is one dumb remark
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Obamination Care is very likely fhe worst piece of crap legislation thats ever been saddled on this country. .... made worse by the fact it was not only passed on a pure party line basis, but fhe Dems had to pull some reconciliation maneuver, never used before on such a massive piece of crap legislation
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It was passed legally.
The Republican'ts refused to participate, even though it was a very close copy to Romneycare.
It will be reformed to make it more efficient, it was badly needed, and it was NOTHING like slavery.
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There is nothing dumber than the Iraq Wars. The first one happened because of deliberate of incompetent diplomacy, the second was based on deliberate deceit and exaggeration. It was hard to do, but the Iraq War rivaled the Vietnam War as an exercise in futility. Of course, after Vietnam, the Vietnamese posed no threat to the US as perhaps Isis does now.
The deceit, incompetence and idiocy of the Bushes was unrivaled by any administration, and now we have a third Bush waiting to screw thing up even more. If money is spent to make Americans healthy, at least it stays in the country. Money sent to Iraq leaves the country and has no multiplier effect on the economy.
Ben Carson likes to say provocative, stupid things. He should stick to medicine.
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Obamination Care is very likely fhe worst piece of crap legislation thats ever been saddled on this country...
Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT and an architect of Obamacare admits they had to lie to get ObamanationCare passed!
During a panel event last year about how the legislation passed, turning over a sixth of the U.S. economy to the government, Gruber admitted that the Obama administration went through "tortuous" measures to keep the facts about the legislation from the American people, including covering up the redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the sick in the legislation that Obamacare is in fact a tax. The video of his comments just recently surfaced ahead of the second open enrollment period for Obamacare at Healthcare.gov.
"You can't do it political, you just literally cannot do it. Transparent financing and also transparent spending. I mean, this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes the bill dies. Okay? So it's written to do that," Gruber said. "In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in, you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical to get for the thing to pass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI
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speaking of Iraq....
(http://s22.postimg.org/a8mfotr1t/Waterboarding.jpg)
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The United States government was doing the waterboarding of people they thought, often mistakenly, were terrorists.
The people killing Christians in Iraq and Syria are NOT Americans, but Sunnis, over whom the US government has no control.
The Juniorbushies invaded Iraq, provoking religious wars Sunnis against Shias and everyone else. I didn't hear Rumsfeld or Cheney or Juniorbush say one damned word of sympathy for the Christians, Zahidis, Druses and Armenians in Iraq. The Syrian revolution occurred as a direct result of the tons of weapons that became available to Syrians as a result of the Iraqi War. I am very much against killing Christians or any innocent parties anywhere, but the US government is not killing Christians and others with taxpayer money. We cannot demand our congress people to withdraw funding of these killers.
Fools who rooted for war are far more to balme than those of us who were against invading Iraq in the first place.
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It was passed legally.
No one claimed it wasn't, Dr Deflection. What WAS done, was to lie in what it was to do, and pass it on not just apure party line basis, but thru a reconciliation procedure, to make sure nothing culd stop it
The Republican'ts refused to participate, even though it was a very close copy to Romneycare.
Nor should they have, as Romneycare was crap, otherwise they'd be married to the worst piece of crap legislation as well. Currently, this piece of crap belongs solely to the Democrats. The GOP had multiple other options that the Demawon'ts, under Reid & Pelosi wouldn't even allow to be voted on. Nope, with the Dems it was this crap, and nothing else
It will be reformed to make it more efficient,
It is logistically IMPOSSIBLE to make this more "efficient"
it was badly needed,
What was "badly needed" was bipartisan support of legislation to target what was so "badly needed"....that being to help insure those with pre-existing conditions
and it was NOTHING like slavery.
CONTEXT Xo....the reference was that Obamination care was not "like Slavery", merely that Carson believes that its as bad as. Which is's likely correct in that deduction
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AS bad as slavery? Really? That is lunacy. A stupid remark. The guy likes to put his foot in his mouth to draw attention, just like Cruz, Trump and Huckleberry. NOT presidential.
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AS bad as slavery? Really?
Yea, really. Worst piece of crap legislation ever imposed, whereby in 1 stroke, the Federal Government destroys a system that was working and supported by a vast majority of its citizenry, replaced by a centralized effort, that was never supported by any majority, pushed by lies, and now gives the Federal Government access to pretty much everyone's health records
They way you take over your citizenry starts with taking over their healthcare, and ends with taking away their guns
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I see in the news (unfortunately I am not on my PC and am unable to copy the article or url) that Jeb is blaming Obama for the rise of ISIS. This seems a bit ridiculous to me. Wasn't it Jeb's own brother, Dubya, that invaded Iraq under false pretenses, then proceeded to dismantle their military, including especially the top leadership? This left no military in Iraq to take over the task of defending their country, and additionally left several disaffected (and fired by the US) former military officers, out of work and thoroughly pissed off at their treatment by the US, to actually become some of the leaders of ISIS. So why blame Oblather?
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They way you take over your citizenry starts with taking over their healthcare, and ends with taking away their guns
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Both of which would make us all safer. But this is another slippery slope argument and therefore illogical. Healthcare and guns are unrelated in US law.
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ummm, the short answers are:
No (based on the parameters being applied)
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Not leaving a residual force, which we've done following nearly every other major combat operation
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So why blame Oblather?
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Why not? He is Black and he is a Democrat. How could he NOT be to blame?
What sets Jeb apart is the huge amount of money he has raised for his campaign and his PAC, and of course, his name, which is probably as much an asset as a liability.
The uninformed voter likes continuity, like Nixon's slogan "Re elect the President" which did not mention the word "Nixon".
The Iraq War would not have been fought by President Gore.
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ummm, the short answers are:
No (based on the parameters being applied)
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Not leaving a residual force, which we've done following nearly every other major combat operation
Except the first Iraq war - so you are saying blame OleBush then? After all, if he had let Stormin' Norman go on to Baghdad and finish Saddam then, there might not have been a second Iraq war.
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Just think - if OleBush had wrapped up the first Iraq war properly:
1. Dubya could have stayed focused on the real problems, the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and we might have wrapped that up years ago, instead of still being mired there now, almost 14 years later.
2. There would have been no need to manufacture a WMD scare to bullshit the American people into supporting another invasion of Iraq.
3. Thousands of American, coalition and Iraqi lives might have been saved, American wounded spared having to live with permanent injuries and PTSD, and the American people would be spared seeing ad after ad for "just (x) dollars a month, you can help a wounded veteran".
I have no confidence in any member of the Bush family when it comes to national office, especially the presidency.
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Just think - if OleBush had wrapped up the first Iraq war properly:
1. Dubya could have stayed focused on the real problems, the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and we might have wrapped that up years ago, instead of still being mired there now, almost 14 years later.
2. There would have been no need to manufacture a WMD scare to bullshit the American people into supporting another invasion of Iraq.
I have no confidence in any member of the Bush family when it comes to national office, especially the presidency.
Well #1 is definately credible, while #2 again is largely a difference of opinion, at this point, and not going to be re-re-re-re-re-rehashed here again, with the same walls being run into. I have no problem with Jeb, if he were to become the nominee, outside of his wayward positions on immigration. But the Bush name has been soiled as bad as the Clintons. And although the Bush's were never directly the source of their soiling, unlike the Clintons, the Bush name has been irreversibly stained, in the post Iraq aftermath
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I have several, but the two biggest are:
1. Olebush.
2. Dubya.
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The First Iraq War was most likely caused deliberately by Olebush. The Kuwaiti contractors were using horizontal drilling to drill under the border with Iraq and sucking oil put of Iraqi fields. The Iraqis did not have this technology, which was American and proprietary. Saddam protested this theft of oil and Olebush had his ambassador April Glespie to tell him that "The US does not have a position on the borders between Middle Eastern nations". Saddam took this to mean that he could attack Kuwait and what the Hell, take it over, since it was historically part of Iraq anyway, which is what he did.
The world economy was in a slump at the time, and nothing pumps up an economy like a good war, so Olebush rounded up a whole bunch of allies and got them to pay the total cost of that war. It cost teh US nothing: the Kuwaitis paid an enormous amount to get their country back. Previously the King of Kuwait was jabbering about how he wanted to sell his oil in appreciating Euros rather than declining dollars, so this was payback time for his greedy Highness. The Japanese, the Saudis, and many others also ponied up funds to pay for this.
So why didn't Olebush go on and finish up Saddam? First, he counted on the Kurds to do it for him, but they failed. Getting rid of Saddam, who was holding a potentially explosive Iraq together was not part of the deal, and Olebush knew that if he did get rid of Saddam, the US would not get paid by the Saudis and Kuwaitis and others and would get stuck with the bill.
We have to remember that OleBush was Director of the CIA, and the CIA is expert at dirty tricks precisely of this nature.
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Nice fantasy
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I am sure that all the tracks have been covered up.
Saddam was a known fool, and Olebush played him like Jerry Murad and the Harmonicats played their harmonicas.
Note that another secret agent, Vladimir Putin, was also in the KGB. Manipulation behind the scenes is what guys like Olebush and Vlad Putin do for a living.
Skullduggery from a Skull and Bonesman.
Elect another Bush and see some more of the same.
Enlisting in the military not recommended when a Bush is in power.
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How convenient the fantasy then becomes
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If it is true, would they have not covered all the tracks? The CIA has pulled off shit like this before, in Brazil, when they conspired to oust Janio Quadros and his successor, Juscelino Kubitschek, in Chile when they conspired to kill Allende, in Indonesia, when they conspired to oust Sukarno.
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LOL....how's this.....The Clintons have been directly funding ISIS & was financially supporting the attack on Benghazi, as Clinton really hated Ambassador Stevens. Of course this has been all covered up now, but that just validates the accusation, right? I mean, if it is true, would they have not covered all the tracks?? Lack of any actual facts or proof, is obviously proof positive
See how bassackwards that is? That's the same thing you're trying to peddle in claiming Bush 1 was behind Saddam attacking Kuwait, then turning around and declaring how its all been covered up. How convenient the fantasy then becomes
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What I said makes perfect sense. What you posted is just silly drivel.
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It makes sense to lunatic leftists perhaps :o
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You are incapable of any form of rational reasoning.
So I expect you to say shit like that.
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If trying to claim Bush1 was behind Saddam invading Iraq, and validated by the fact there's no proof what-so-ever, is tantamount to "rational reasoning", indeed, you can count me out of that lunatic class
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You are in the batshit crazy ratbag right class.
Lunatic would require a promotion.
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Says the fella who claims Bush 1 made Saddam invade Kuwait, with no proof being the proof ;D
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We know what the drillers were doing. They were using slant drilling, which the Iraqis lacked the technolgy and equipment to do, to plunder oil from Iraqi oil deposits. Kuwait used this oil to increase its production, which drove down the price Iraq got for its oil.
We know what Olebush told his ambassador to tell Saddam. It is NOT TRUE that the US does not take positions on the borders of Middle Eastern countries. They have done this on several occasions.
Saddam thought that Olebush was a wimp. Olebush had a reputation as a wimp at the time. Limbaugh called him a wimp many times.
Anyone that knows the history knows that the British separated Kuwait from the former Ottoman province. Kuwait was once a province of Iraq. The Brits did this so they could easily get to the oil near the coast and would not have to deal with the bellicose people of Iraq farther up the river. The Brits made a deal to set the borders of Saudi Arabia with Kuwait, and Kuwait lost a lot of territory to Saudi Arabia.
We also know that the Emir of Kuwait was suggesting in OPEC that they begin to require payments in Euros rather than dollars. That pissed off the Americans. Iraq had LOTS of money in US banks, and the Emir was talking about moving it to Europe, where he could earn more money.
We also know that the full cost of the Iraq War was covered by other contries. The US actually made a profit on the deal, especially if the pensions for wounded veterans and their families are not included. That huge pile of Kuwaiti money in the US was mostly spent by the Kuwaitis on the war and repairing all the damage done by the invasion and the expulsion of the Iraqis.
It is safe to assume that the terms of the deal between the US and the allies were secret and specified exactly what the US could and could not do. The US was not allowed to remove Saddam. Olebush counted on this being done by the Kurds and other anti Baathist Iraqis, because he said so at the time.
And of course, everyone knows that the CIA was famous for just this sort of dirty trick and that Olebush was very, very close to the CIA, as he had been its director.
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And the fantasy lives on ;D
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He should stick to medicine.
Yes healthcare is one of his many strong suits
(http://s14.postimg.org/sxbsmcrwh/1488128_400471430086041_1313972038_n_jpg_oh_88b4.jpg)
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Every bloody industrialized country has some form of universal healthcare, and they all pay less than we do.
It is about controlling the fat paychecks of the hospital companies, Big pharma and everyone else involved in the medical industry where competition is impossible.
It is about controlling the amount we have to pay not to get sick and die. They think they own our health and they want is to understand that unless we pay their bloated salaries and their ultra inefficient systems we will die before our time.
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So now we all PAY MORE, for less quality of care, longer wait times, and yet there are still uninsured. And in the meantime, the Government is in control of your most private health information, and dictates what care, you're deemed appropriate to receive. All the while, those who passed it, are not obligated to be a part of it, or even pay into it
Starting to see the problem with this picture, yet??
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Nearly all of what you spew is actually untrue, though no doubt you believe it.
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So now we all PAY MORE, for less quality of care, longer wait times, and yet there are still uninsured.
Yep SIRS...and that's why Obama's architect of ObamaCare admitted they had to lie their asses off to get it to pass.
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The actual rate of increase in healthcare has DECLINED. If there were no ACA, people would be paying more.
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That's not only fantasy speak.....WE WERE PLEDGED THAT WE WOULD PAY LESS.....NOT LESS OF MORE THAT WE WOULD HYPOTHETICALLY SPEND
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Oh shut up, you foolish moron.
The president does not control what hospitals, drug companies and medical device suppliers charge for their service and products. Anyone with a brain knows this.
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The President absolutely controls what he says. He lied thru his teeth to get what public support, which incidentally has NEVER been a majority of the American people. More crony capitalism at its worst where the Government AND your evil Insurance companies colluded to impose this monstrosity of crap legislation. Lie after lie after lie after lie
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It's kinda cute watching someone literally swim in a pool of ignorance. ;-)
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They way you take over your citizenry starts with taking over their healthcare, and ends with taking away their guns
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Both of which would make us all safer. But this is another slippery slope argument and therefore illogical. Healthcare and guns are unrelated in US law.
I may want to quote you , next time that the government wants to address guns as a health issue and study the distribution of guns with the resources of the CDC.
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.....
It is about controlling the fat paychecks of the hospital companies, Big pharma and everyone else involved in the medical industry where competition is impossible.
It is about controlling the amount we have to pay not to get sick and die. They think they own our health and they want is to understand that unless we pay their bloated salaries and their ultra inefficient systems we will die before our time.
How did the big hospital companies and big pharmaceutical companies fight against Obamacare?
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Getting back to the original subject, Jebbie...
A family affair: Why Jeb Bush's foreign policy is just as bad as his brother's
Ryan Cooper
Jeb Bush this week delivered a major address on foreign policy, focusing mostly on the Middle East. If he wanted to distance himself from his brother's disastrous failure as commander-in-chief, he could not have failed harder, short of maybe biting the head off a fruit bat and vowing a blood oath to personally execute every Muslim on the planet.
Where he speaks of historical fact, he is grossly mistaken. Where his policy is not insanely belligerent, it is misguided, hopeless, or simply confused. Under no circumstances should he be allowed anywhere near the controls of the most powerful military on the planet.
Bush blames President Obama for everything that has gone wrong in the Middle East, from the rise of ISIS to the civil war in Syria. He argues that Obama lacks sufficient strength, by which he means approaching every situation like a chest-thumping silverback gorilla in the grips of amphetamine psychosis. It's the classic neoconservative approach: There is no situation that cannot be solved by sufficient aggressiveness and will.
His stance relies heavily on an utterly ridiculous account of the 2007 "surge" in Iraq. Bush claims that his brother had the war on the right track, but then Obama's weak-kneed withdrawal of the troops in 2011 led to chaos and eventually ISIS.
As Peter Beinart carefully explains, this is garbage history. The surge did succeed in tamping down violence for a time, helped along by the Sunni Awakening. But the entire point of that effort was to make space for political reconciliation between the Shiite-controlled government and the largely Sunni insurgency. In that, it was a total failure. Nuri al-Maliki, then the Iraqi prime minister, was persecuting the Sunnis before the surge was even over, leaving them unwilling to fight ISIS when the time came.
Furthermore, as Fred Kaplan points out, it was George W. Bush (not Obama) who negotiated the original Iraq withdrawal timeline in 2008. When the Iraqi government insisted U.S. troops leave in 2011, Obama had little option aside from re-invading the country.
Both George W. Bush and Obama perhaps deserve some blame for not pushing harder for political reconciliation, but in general it is very difficult to micromanage the politics of a post-dictatorship foreign nation that has just been stomped into fragments.
Unsurprisingly, Jeb Bush also loathes the proposed nuclear deal with Iran. He even implies that Iran is behind the rise of ISIS: "Iran, its ally [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad, its terrorist proxy Hezbollah, and the sectarian militias it sponsors have fueled the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, that have helped give rise to ISIS." This is a piece of gross dishonesty right out of the Bush family handbook — don't state outright that there's a connection, but repeat the implication of one over and over until the association takes hold by osmosis. In 2002, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney used similar tactics to trick 72 percent of Americans into believing Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
In reality, of course, Iran and ISIS are bitter enemies, and Iranian troops make up many of the quality forces fighting ISIS in Iraq. Bush is not just dishonest, but his policy is also working at cross-purposes.
This strategic incoherence is characteristic of the Bush approach. Could we make nice with Iran or Assad to fight ISIS, even temporarily? Nope, we must confront all three simultaneously! He mentions Egypt and Saudi Arabia as key allies, but does not mention the disastrous Saudi intervention going on in Yemen right now, despite the fact that the chaos there has created a major opening for al Qaeda. There is no sense of prioritization, just a random list of bad guys.
Worst of all is his Syria policy. When it comes to Iraq, Bush does not really propose to do anything that Obama is not already doing — support the Kurds, conduct some airstrikes, and so forth. But he wants to get hip-deep in the Syrian conflict — identifying the moderate Syrian forces, uniting them against both ISIS and Assad, then making sure Assad isn't replaced by somebody worse. But there basically are no moderate Syrians, much less any that Bush could "unite." Instead, this would very likely commit America to another state-building project in a shattered post-dictatorship nation whose ethnic groups are at each other's throats!
George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was one of the worst mistakes in the history of American foreign policy for many reasons, but foremost among them was sheer arrogance. He thought knocking over a repressive dictatorship halfway around the world and replacing it with a parliamentary democracy would be easy, requiring little expertise. Instead it was a jaw-dropping maelstrom of bloody horror that exceeded the worst predictions of his critics. Jeb Bush lived through all that, but appears to think this time we'll get it right. We just have to try extra-hard.
http://theweek.com/articles/571427/family-affair-why-jeb-bushs-foreign-policy-just-bad-brothers
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Olebush, Juniorbush and Jebbiebush. Three doses of disastrous foreign policy.
Gotta love this quote:
Jeb Bush this week delivered a major address on foreign policy, focusing mostly on the Middle East. If he wanted to distance himself from his brother's disastrous failure as commander-in-chief, he could not have failed harder, short of maybe biting the head off a fruit bat and vowing a blood oath to personally execute every Muslim on the plane
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Bush blames President Obama for everything that has gone wrong in the Middle East, from the rise of ISIS to the civil war in Syria. He argues that Obama lacks sufficient strength,........................
.............His stance relies heavily on an utterly ridiculous account of the 2007 "surge" in Iraq. Bush claims that his brother had the war on the right track, but then Obama's weak-kneed withdrawal of the troops in 2011 led to chaos and eventually ISIS.
Is this an unfair or untrue account of events?
I remember President Obama being so pleased with progress that he declared the mission accomplished.
Certainly mistakes were made , but there is a lot of room to disagree on what and when they were.
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Invading Iraq was a hideous mistake. It is hard for poor Jebbie to admit that his brother made some of the worst decisions of any president ever.
Would a President Jebbie have the guts to tell his entire family to go suck an egg if they advocated more military adventurism?
I am pretty sure he would not, and would be inclined to see things from the Official Family playbook.