The Failed Bush Legacy Lives On

As noted in prior posts, Jeb Bush made what was billed as a "major foreign policy" speech in Chicago and, despite his efforts to claim that he is "his own man," his circle of foreign policy advisers are a group recycled from his brother's disastrous regime and, worse yet, Jebbie won't even talk about the fiasco in Iraq and Afghanistan that his idiot brother left as a still poisonous legacy for America.  Thankfully, Bush has been pummeled in many op-eds and it is unlikely that he will be able to escape the cloud that his brother placed over the Bush name.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

Bush’s speech Wednesday in Chicago consisted of empty platitudes doled out in tight rations. Anyone who expected more from perhaps the leading establishment contender for the Republican presidential nomination had to be disappointed.

Set aside for the moment the fact that Bush’s rushed, fumbling delivery would have made even the grandest ideas sound small. Look past the fact that he proved his father’s and brother’s equal in creatively mangling the English language — saying, for example, that immigration should be a “catalytic converter” for economic growth. 

Strip all that away, and you’re left with nostrums about how America must be strong and engaged and feared and respected — all of which is pretty much inevitable for the world’s preeminent economic and military power, no matter who occupies the White House. There were precious few examples of what, precisely, Bush would do differently from what President Obama is already doing.

Given that the previous presidents named Bush have gone two-for-two in launching major Iraq wars, one obvious question is whether Jeb Bush would make it three-for-three. He did not provide a clear answer.

19 of his 21 foreign policy advisers previously worked for his brother George W. Bush, his father, George H.W. Bush, or both. Among those achieving the Bush Trifecta are Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 

Jeb Bush acknowledged that “there were mistakes made in Iraq, for sure,” but he praised his brother’s troop surge as “one of the most heroic acts of courage politically that any president’s done.” That is, of course, a ridiculous overstatement, but let’s cut him a bit of slack; he does have to sit around the Thanksgiving table with the guy. 

Perhaps the most definitive position Bush took was a call for increased defense spending. But he did not attempt to specify what the additional money would buy, except to say the United States needs to “inspire fear in our enemies.” Current U.S. military spending, it should be noted, is greater than that of the next eight countries combined.

If I were a fiscal conservative, I’d begin to suspect that Jeb Bush is as much of a big-government Republican as his big brother. He wants to spend more on the Pentagon, invest in infrastructure and education, spur the economy to 4 percent annual growth — if I didn’t know better, I’d say it all sounds almost Keynesian.

Overall, it was not a terribly impressive performance. In his time as Florida governor, Bush showed himself to be smart and wonkish about domestic issues. If he has any fresh, original ideas about the international sphere, he succeeded in keeping them to himself.

The problem with this approach is that it invites voters to fill in the blanks — and to begin with a surname that does not augur well. 

Bottom line: we do NOT need another Bush in the White House!