Jeb Bush's ineptness as a candidate

Political lore fifteen years ago had it that Jeb Bush is the talented politician in the Bush family.   He was the intellectual one and the serious one who should have been president, the one whose chances were ruined by the ineptitude of that young slacker, Dubya.

Despite expectations, times change;   and the powers that be decided that maybe the well wasn't poisoned after all, that Jeb still had a chance to be president.   So here we are, with Jeb as the presumptive establishment candidate for the Republican nomination.

The trouble is that he's blowing it.    Surprise, surprise !!   At first, his missteps and inept utterings were chalked up to his being rusty as a candidate, having last run for office some 13 years ago.   But he doesn't seem to be improving much.  In fact, he's beginning to remind me of the oops-prone Rick Perry.

In one week, he shamelessly pandered to the hard-core religious right . . . and then fumbled a question that should have been anticipated with a clear answer ready. 

First, the pandering.   Raking in tons of money from the Republican establishment, and favoring immigration reform, he pretty much had the center-right crowd sewed up.   It was the far right he had to court.   So they managed to score an invitation for Jeb to give the commencement address at Liberty University, the religious school founded by the late Rev.  Jerry Falwell.

[I'm putting aside the shocking partisanship of Jeb's address to the graduating class.   Commencement speechs are supposed to be inspirational or, for politicians, at least extol the soaring ideals that inspire their work for the people -- not partisan attacks on their opponents.   But that's another example of Jeb's ineptitude -- and that of his campaign managers.]

In this address, Jeb attacked Obama for "failing to preserve religious freedom" and condemned "federal authorities" for "demanding obedience, in complete disregard of religious conscience."

Of course, that is utter nonsense, and Jeb knows it is.   But it's the kind of red meat that makes the far right salivate.   Jeb's problem is that Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee already have that market sewed up (forget it, Bobby Jindal;   you haven't got a chance, so stop making a fool of yourself;   you just aren't believable as a bible-thumper).

No, Jeb's strong point was being the establishment candidate, not winning over the right-wing.   The multiple right-wingers cancel each other out.   Jeb needs to worry more about being a competent candidate so that he can beat Scott Walker and Marco Rubio.

That's where he is failing -- flubbing the delicate tight-rope act of dealing with the legacy Dubya left him.

So far, Jeb has (1) named a whole host of Dubya's foreign policy advisers (including Paul Wolfowitz) to his own roster of foreign policy advisers;  (2) declared "I am my own man"supposedly to ease fears about #1;  and then confounded it by saying (3) that brother George is the person he listens to most for advice on Israel and the MiddleEast.

That obfuscation would not be fatal, even though it seems more tactical damage control than strategic planning.   But then, coming on top of that, his inept answer to Fox News host Megyn Kelly may very well derail the golden boy's path to success.  If he's not prepared by now to know how he's going to handle his brother's legacy, it's probably too late.  Here's the exchange:

KELLY: On the subject of Iraq. . . .  Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?
BUSH: I would have, and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody, and so would have almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.
KELLY: You don't think it was a mistake?
BUSH: In retrospect the intelligence that everybody saw, that the world saw, not just the United States, was faulty. And in retrospect, once we invaded and took out Saddam Hussein, we didn’t focus on security first. And the Iraqis, in this incredibly insecure environment, turned on the United States military because there was no security for themselves and their families. By the way, guess who thinks that those mistakes took place as well? George W. Bush. Yes, I mean, so just for the news flash to the world, if they’re trying to find places where there’s big space between me and my brother, this might not be one of those.

Liberal pundits had a field day, of course.   But none was so outspoken as conservative radio host Laura Ingraham:

"You can't still think that going into Iraq, now, as a sane human being, was the right thing to do. If you do, there has to be something wrong with you. . . .  Hillary wouldn't authorize the war now, if she knew what she knows now. . . .  You have to have someone who says, 'look, I'm a Republican but I'm not an idiot! I'm not stupid! . . . I learn from the past and I improve myself.'"

The only way Jeb's answer makes any sense at all is that he was answering a different question:   whether -- given the same information known in 2003 -- he would have authorized the invasion.   That's obviously what he was answering;  but it's not what Kelly asked.

But that explanation is not good enough.   This is a question that should have been anticipated, should have been ready on the tip of his tongue.  The fact that he was anticipating a different question and wasn't facile enough to shift his thinking is a bad sign.   A serious presidential candidate has to be sharp enough to respond in the moment and not just spout rehearsed answers.

Frankly, I have never been favorably impressed by Jeb Bush as a worthy opponent.   He may have the least objectionable policy positions of the 20-odd potential GOP candidates;  but, as a thinker and a speaker, he is not the best and brightest that they have to offer.   And that's not a very high bar, even though the field is better than four years ago.

Ralph 

Two days later:   Now that the question has been clarified for him, Jeb still can't bring himself to say a simple "no," that he would not go to war, knowing what we know now.  Even with friendly host Sean Hannity on Fox News, he waffled and obfuscated.   He refused to take a clear stand "because that's a hypothetical . . . I don't know what the answer would have been."    If this is the best he can do, with two days to figure out an answer, he might as well hang it up now.