Jeb! Tries To Polish Family Legacy, Doesn't Realize It's A Turd

Juan Cole at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) has some facts that set the record straight on John Ellis "Jeb!" Bush's recent revisionist Iraq War wanderings:

Jeb Bush very unwisely went after Hillary Clinton last night on the grounds that her Iraq policies gave us Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). [snip]

One of the arguments Mr. Bush made was that while his brother, George W. Bush, didn’t get everything right, he did have a brilliant moment with the 2007 troop escalation or “surge,” which put the world right. Then that horrible Obama crew, including Mrs. Cinton, came along and screwed things up by withdrawing from Iraq in 2011.

First of all, saying that W. didn’t get everything right in Iraq is like saying that Custer didn’t get everything right at the Little Bighorn. Bush’s Iraq misadventure was the biggest foreign policy screw-up in American history. Didn’t get everything right, indeed.

Second, Jeb Bush’s narrative about the “surge” is mythical history unconnected to reality. See my Engaging the Muslim World for the real story.

In brief, here is what happened.  (our emphasis)

Cole then proceeds to masterfully dismantle Jeb's ! faulty neocon history, once again calling into question whether Jeb! is the "smart Bush" (one always has to remember, it's all relative). 

Jeb! has recently been on a campaign to out-Trump Rump in the belligerent know-nothing department. On torture.  On the Iran nuclear deal.  On relations with Cuba.  Jeb! is starting to sound like Dumbya on steriods.  But when your "investors" have lined your campaign coffers with tens of millions of dollars and you're at 5 percent in Iowa, you need to start flailing away and hope that you're appealing to someone, somewhere.

Problem is, a Bush trying to sound smart about Iraq is a guaranteed Fail. 

The Bushes And The Republican "Reign of Error"

In today's column, Paul Krugman discusses John Ellis "J.E.B." Bush's recent mind-numbing floundering on the question of "would I invade Iraq like brother Dumbya did" (see post below) in the context of Republican "fraternity of failure":

[Their] refusal to learn from experience, combined with a version of political correctness in which you’re only acceptable if you have been wrong about crucial issues, is pervasive in the modern Republican

Take my usual focus, economic policy. If you look at the list of economists who appear to have significant influence on Republican leaders, including the likely presidential candidates, you find that nearly all of them agreed, back during the “Bush boom,” that there was no housing bubble and the American economic future was bright; that nearly all of them predicted that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight the economic crisis that developed when that nonexistent bubble popped would lead to severe inflation; and that nearly all of them predicted that Obamacare, which went fully into effect in 2014, would be a huge job-killer.

Given how badly these predictions turned out — we had the biggest housing bust in history, inflation paranoia has been wrong for six years and counting, and 2014 delivered the best job growth since 1999 — you might think that there would be some room in the G.O.P. for economists who didn’t get everything wrong. But there isn’t. Having been completely wrong about the economy, like having been completely wrong about Iraq, seems to be a required credential.

For all the efforts of the "mainstream media" to portray this Party of Crackpots as somehow normal, reasonable and capable of governing, the disastrous Republican track record ("reign of error") plus their clown car of presidential candidates bodes well for Hillary Clinton in the early stages of the 2016 race.

BONUS:   "J.E.B." thinks his Apple watch will supplant Obamacare someday.  First, he needs to get fitted for a hearing aid for his tin ear.

Raise Your Hand Cartoon of the Day

(click to enlarge)

The House of Bush's next-in-line John Ellis "J.E.B." Bush has spent the past week digging himself deeper into a hole over his statement that, knowing what we know now, he'd still launch an invasion of Iraq. First, he tried claiming that he misunderstood the question, even though his answer didn't reflect that.  Then he tried ducking the question by saying it dishonored those who served, as if dying in a war based on lies wasn't bad enough.  Now, he's saying he would have stayed out.  His erstwhile competitors are circling him in the water, too.

J.E.B.'s continuing gaffes not only remind the public of his brother Dumbya's reckless stupidity (who advises him on Middle East foreign policy), but that he'd bring the same foreign policy and discredited advisors to the White House with him.  Equally significant, it supports the growing narrative that the ISIS threat and Iran's surging influence in the region are a direct result of his brother's decisions to launch the war against Iraq twelve years ago.

(cartoon: Steve Breen, via Gocomics.com)