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Update:
In an interview on Fox News’ “The Kelly File” to be aired Monday, May 11, Jeb Bush once again narrows the gap between him and his brother George W. Bush. Jeb Bush says that he would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq and rushes to add, “and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody.”
That should clear the air and settle the whole issue.
Now read the rest of the story, below.
But see CODA, at end.
Original post:
After denying him (more than) three times and after repeatedly declaring that he is “his own man,” undeclared GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush last week finally embraced his brother, former president George W. Bush.
At a private gathering on Tuesday in Manhattan, Bush declared his brother to be “his most influential counselor on U.S.-Israel policy,” adding that he leans on the former president “for insights when it comes to Israel and the Middle East.”
The New York Times writes: “According to CNN, Mr. Bush told the private gathering: ‘What you need to know is that who I listen to when I need advice on the Middle East is George W. Bush.’”
Many critics and pundits immediately pounced on this announcement.
They recall the alleged disaster that was George W. Bush’s foreign policy. They remember Bush’s alleged missteps in the Middle East, especially the alleged catastrophe that was the Iraq War, a war over “a fake national security threat that forced the military to abandon the real national security threat in Afghanistan.” They can not forget how Bush “and his advisers then botched the invasion, creating a civil war that led in a fairly straight line to the current chaos in Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group, which has now infected Syria and other countries.”
Andrew Rosenthal lists several other related, alleged “missteps” by Jeb Bush’s brother: something to do with illegal detention networks, torture, doing “nothing to slow, thwart or otherwise impede Iran’s nuclear program,” and ‘stuff’ like that.
I see this differently.
I believe that George W. Bush would make an excellent foreign policy adviser, especially when it comes to holy wars and installing democracies in the Middle East.
But why, one may ask.
Well, George W. Bush himself is guided by an even higher, impeccable provenance.
Even before assuming the presidency Bush knew that “his presidency is part of a divine plan, even telling a friend while he was governor of Texas, ‘I believe God wants me to run for president.'”
Once president, the call from Him became even stronger and the mission in Iraq and the Middle East even more urgent and righteous.
The New York Times in March 2003:
God is at work in world affairs, [Bush] says, calling for the United States to lead a liberating crusade in the Middle East, and “this call of history has come to the right country.”
But now Jeb Bush seems to be wavering. His campaign has let it be known that Jeb was only talking about taking his brother’s advice on Israel.
On Saturday, while delivering the commencement address at Liberty University, Jeb Bush — referring to a group of nuns who had fought a birth control mandate under the ACA — said, “From the standpoint of religious freedom, you might even say it’s a choice between the Little Sisters and Big Brother. And I’m going with the Little Sisters.”
While it is not clear which “big brother” Bush was thinking of ditching, it is perfectly clear to all of us who long for the good old days, that Jeb Bush should declare Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. to be his most influential counselor on religion and all things moral.
Such an appointment, along with the long list of former Bush administration neo-conservativess already on Jeb Bush’s team, should make for an unbeatable collection.
[If some of this sounds like satire, it is because this is another in a series of “(Republican) Life Imitating Satire” essays.]
CODA:
In his Fox News interview, Jeb Bush, rushes to put Hillary Clinton at the same level of culpability and chicanery as his brother, George W. Bush, with respect to the Iraq War.
But silly me believes that there is a world of difference between Hillary Clinton (and so many other Democratic Senators who “voted” for the Iraq War) and the George W. Bush administration.
It appears to me that Hillary Clinton et al accepted the imminent threat, WMD and other “intelligence” fed them by the Bush administration in good faith.
On the other hand, I believe that the Bush-Cheney cabal knowingly fabricated false intelligence and fed Congress with other faulty and misleading information in order to get the votes necessary to take our country to war.
But I could be wrong…
