COMMENTS:
* It is so great to finally get some pushback on the GW Bush myth "he kept us safe". OMG, everything went to hell in a handbasket during that administration, how do people not remember?
* I know I'm enjoying it. Should have listened to your mama, John Ellis III, and not run...
* He still has to answer for his ghastly interference in the Terri Schiavo case.
* I am one of those Democrats who remembered the voting travesty in 2000, caused in most part by throwing eligible black voters off the rolls. So yes I am one of those who are really enjoying Jeb! falling apart. Barbara was right - we have had enough Bushes. And we have had enough republican presidents for a while also - they just ruin our middle class and with the republican congress we are now stuck with we dont need any more enemies.
* He's not just "flailing", he is failing. He acts like someone who really doesn't want the job.
* No, JEB is an inarticulate man of average intelligence on a good day. No degree of separation (or reparation) will let JEB fix that.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Jeb is flailing. It’s a surprisingly pleasant thing to watch.
After the baffling success of his brother, Jeb’s implosion has induced all kinds of schadenfreude on the left.
By Ben Adler, November 9, 2015Winning always feels good, but — admit it — watching your most despised opponent lose brings a singular kind of satisfaction. And for those on the left of the political aisle, this Republican primary campaign is giving us the greatest gift imaginable: The Bushes are losing!
Even more gratifying is the (almost) pitiable, sad-sack manner in which Jeb Bush is going about it. “There is a special delight in watching the Bush balloon lose air and basically collapse,” says Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal advocacy group. A delight “that every liberal will feel after fighting the Bush wars against his brother.”
We know, after all, what a lot of liberals thought of George W. Bush: arrogant, dishonest and not very bright. But one insult you would never hear used to describe W is “loser.” He was infuriating precisely because his life was a string of undeserved wins, from college admissions to presidential elections. Macho swagger, with the implication it carries of knowing you’re a winner, was his trademark. Now W’s younger brother Jeb is running for president, and liberals can cheer: Thank God he’s such a loser!
“Since we can’t get back at [George W.] Bush to beat him, and since we blame him for the Iraq war and the economy, it’s nice to see his brother go,” says Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster.
Thanks primarily to name recognition, Jeb shot to the top of the polls early this year, like his brother had in 2000, while raking in massive contributions from his family’s extensive donor network. And the media began repeating the mistake it made 15 years ago, reflexively presenting another Bush brother as a moderate despite his staunchly conservative record and 2016 platform.
Democrats worried that history would repeat itself, with one more Bush gaining legacy admission to the White House. It still could — informed observers tend not to think that current front-runners Donald Trump or Ben Carson will actually win the Republican nomination next year any more than Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann did last time. Often, as with John Kerry in 2004, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, the initial favorite loses steam before rebounding.
But as his poll numbers keep slipping and he keeps getting battered in debates, Jeb’s chances look a lot weaker than they did a few months ago. Whatever happens next year, we’re clearly savoring the downswing right now.
It’s an unexpected gift to liberals that this Bush scion struggles to answer predictable questions. “I find it just astonishing and surprising,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says, “that the third member of that family running for president in such a short period of time is so bad at it.” “It’s surprising how totally inept he is as a politician,” Lake says. “He doesn’t seem to be good on his feet.”
Jeb brings together his father’s and brother’s weaknesses without their strengths: He’s inarticulate but has no instinct for Bush 43’s demagoguery. He’s awkwardly patrician but lacks Bush 41’s combat experience or foreign policy credentials. He was a lousy high school student and classmates recall him as something of a bully, but he hasn’t translated that into a W-style good ol’ boy shtick. For Bush-haters, it’s like getting to relive the aughts with a weaker version of W — and watching him go down in flames.
Best of all is when Jeb bungles the handling of his brother’s troubled legacy. Jeb’s first big campaign mess-up, and arguably the moment when his polling lead really started to erode, occurred in May. He was asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, and he could not provide a clear answer — or stick to just one.
Which also reflects the fact — which tickles liberals, as it reinforces their belief that the Bush genes don’t carry much in the way of perspicacity — that even the “smart” Bush brother doesn’t seem very sharp. “I used to refer to Jeb as ‘the smart one,’” says Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas. “Boy, was I wrong! This was the guy who pretty much, on the first day of his campaign, he fumbled a question about his brother’s invasion of Iraq. So rather than having a smart sibling, it’s now clear that the whole clan is dumb as rocks.”
It’s also fun for progressives to watch the Bush clan grapple with what the rest of us already knew: The White House isn’t theirs by right. “The schadenfreude is less about Jeb than [it is] to see his whole family essentially abandoned,” Moulitsas says. “Their donors — their biggest supporters! — are bad-mouthing Jeb to the media.” George H.W. Bush, whom many Democrats will never forgive for beating Michael Dukakis in 1988 with racially charged attack ads, is said to be especially miffed. The New York Times reports that he “is straining to understand an election season that has, for his son and the Republican Party, lurched sharply and stunningly off script.” Jeb himself broke down at a recent South Carolina town hall. “I’ve got a lot of really cool things I could do other than sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and me feeling compelled to demonize them,” he pouted. “That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that.”
Jeb is galled to be trailing the likes of Trump and Carson — and that just makes the spectacle all the more entertaining for the left.
“The establishment candidates across the board have sunk, and you’re left with outsiders and wing-nuts,” Borosage says. “It’s fascinating and a little appalling. You’re watching the Republican Party commit hara-kiri in this primary season. Watching that self-destruction has brought a lot of enjoyment. If you had a Kasich-Rubio ticket emerging, Bush’s collapse would be much less pleasurable. Watching the wing-nuts lead the parade is especially amusing.”
Some hope it may lead the mainstream media to admit, and swing voters to realize, that the Republican Party has fully taken leave of its senses. “I’m finding great enjoyment in seeing the failure of the generic ‘establishment’ candidate,” says Sam Seder, host of “Majority Report,” a long-running liberal radio program. “The GOP has been a radical party for years, and it has been greatly aided by a conventional wisdom that has ignored that radical turn.”
Liberals say Jeb has given them good reason to direct their enmity toward him. “If Jeb had not come out with his brother’s advisers, if he had presented himself as a different creature, maybe I wouldn’t have the same revulsion,” says Ari Rabin-Havt, host of Sirius XM’s “The Agenda.” “But the idea that he would take on the same advisers, especially on foreign policy, is terrifying.”
Jeb is also tied to W’s legacy and the role he played in helping W claim victory in 2000. As governor of Florida, Jeb oversaw the disproportionate purging of African Americans from voting rolls and the inordinate rejection of ballots cast by black voters. “Anyone who was involved in the Gore campaign or close to that battle has particular animosity for Jeb Bush,” Borosage says. And Florida progressives are relieved that he is losing, even if it’s not for the right reason. “I’m glad to see that he’s failing,” says Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who is running for Senate. “But I regret to see that he’s failing because right-wing ideologues do not see him as enough of a right-wing ideologue, when, in fact, he is a right-wing ideologue.”
Finally, there is the sense among liberals that Jeb’s biography and attitude of casual entitlement, like W’s, is an insult to the liberal ideal of meritocracy. “He was born on third base and thought he hit triple, just like his brother,” Grayson says. “He whines,” Borosage notes. “He, even more than W, seems to think this thing should have been bequeathed to him.”
Of course, there are always those who are too high-minded to take pleasure another’s pain. “There’s a widespread view from the left to moderate Democrats that wants to exert revenge on Bush and [former vice president Richard B.] Cheney and takes satisfaction from their demise,” says Tom Hayden, a longtime progressive activist, author and former California State Assembly member. “Maybe because I’ve matured since I was 60 years old, I’m beyond those feelings.”
Well, I’m only 34 and I haven’t yet reached Hayden’s serenity. Maybe it’s wrong to get a kick out of someone else’s misfortune. But I won’t lie — I’m loving it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
No comments:
Post a Comment