Another Bush Presidency - Just What America Doesn't Need

Not content with having failed to keep America safe from the 9-11 attacks and having led America into disastrous fool's errands in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush family is gearing up for a presidential run by Jeb Bush.  While the GOP establishment may be thrilled by the prospect, I suspect the spittle flecked, unwashed Christofascist/Tea Party controlled party grass roots will be far lest ecstatic.  Particularly disturbing to me is the sense of entitlement that seems to permeate the Bush clan.  One can only hope that America has the sense to reject Bush early on.  Meanwhile, expect a blood bath in the GOP presidential primaries where Jeb Bush will be assailed by the lunatics in the GOP clown car like Ben Carson, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.  The New York Times looks at Bush's apparent mmentum towards announcing his canadacy.  Here are excerpts:

When Jeb Bush decides whether to run for president, there will be no family meeting à la Mitt Romney, no gathering at Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport to go over the pros and cons. “I don’t think it’ll be like a big internal straw poll,” said his son, Jeb Bush Jr.

But if there were, the results of the poll are pretty much in. As Mr. Bush nears a decision to become the third member of his storied family to seek the presidency, the extended Bush clan and its attendant network, albeit with one prominent exception, are largely rallying behind the prospect and pulling the old machine out of the closet.

“No question,” Jeb Jr. said in an interview, “people are getting fired up about it — donors and people who have been around the political process for a while, people he’s known in Tallahassee when he was governor. The family, we’re geared up either way.” Most important, he added, his mother, Columba, the prospective candidate’s politics-averse wife, has given her assent.

Barbara Bush, the former first lady and Jeb Bush’s mother, is unconvinced, according to people close to the family, but has been persuaded to stop saying it so publicly.

Just six years ago, at the end of the last tumultuous Bush presidency, this would have been all but unthinkable. But President Obama’s troubles, the internal divisions of the Republican Party, a newfound nostalgia for the first Bush presidency and a modest softening of views about the second have changed the dynamics enough to make plausible another Bush candidacy. And while Jeb Bush wants to run as his own man, invariably this is a family with something to prove.

For the elder Mr. Bush, Jeb was always the son expected to go far in politics, the serious one with drive to spare. After George W. gave up drinking and surpassed his brother, the elder Mr. Bush still harbored ambitions for the second son. Now 90 and in fading health, Mr. Bush has been animated about a possible Jeb campaign, according to friends.

George W. has become an outspoken advocate of a White House bid by Jeb. “The one person who is really, really trying to get Jeb to run is George W.,” said the family insider. “He’s talking it up all the time.”

He knows he would have to find a way to distance himself from some of the unpopular decisions of his father, and especially of his brother, while overcoming broader Bush fatigue.

And he has said publicly he does not want to run if it means getting caught in the “vortex of a mud fight,” acutely aware of the perils of bringing his family into the harsh light of modern politics. Columba was once stopped by customs agents for not declaring the full value of $19,000 in clothing and jewelry she bought in Paris, and their daughter Noelle was arrested on a prescription drug fraud charge a dozen years ago.

Friends and relatives took notice when Jeb Bush told a reporter during a campaign swing for his son that his wife would support a bid should he make one. Jeb Bush Jr. said that was important. “She’s not a big fan of politics and all the ugly things that go along with it, especially as it seems like it’s gotten worse with every passing cycle,” he said. “But she loves Dad and she loves the country, and I think she’ll be supportive.”

Jeb Bush Jr. said his father would make a decision after next week’s midterm elections, informed by experience no other possible candidate has had.

“If there’s one guy out there who knows how to run a presidential campaign, it’s definitely him,” he said. “He’s been around it, really, since 1980. He understands the full-court press.”