Jeb Bush Questions G.O.P.’s Shift Right

[alp227]

Source: NY Times

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said his father, George Bush, and Ronald Reagan would find themselves out of step with today’s Republican Party because of its strict adherence to ideology and the intensity of modern partisan warfare.

“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, similar to my dad, they would have had a hard time if you define the Republican Party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement,” Mr. Bush said at question-and-answer session with reporters and editors held Monday morning in Manhattan by Bloomberg View.

“Back to my dad’s time or Ronald Reagan’s time,” he said, “they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support that right now would be difficult to imagine happening.”

Mr. Bush’s comments help solidify his role as the Republican Party’s leading voice of moderation at a time when many in the party — particularly Tea Party adherents — are calling for ever-greater ideological discipline. And he continued a trend this campaign cycle of big-name presidential endorsers going off script from the campaigns they support. Mr. Bush has endorsed Mitt Romney’s candidacy.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/us/politics/jeb-bush-takes-aim-at-fellow-republicans.html

[msongs]

1. of course he blames BOTH sides equally. isn't GW Bush YOUR brother, Jec? nt

[Hugabear]

2. No, no they wouldn't.

Jeb is trying to set himself up for a 2016 run as a "moderate" rethug.

Problem is he's wrong - and he knows it. Pappy Bush and Reagan would have been proud of the current batch of rethugs. They'd laud them for "sticking to their convictions".

And why is Jeb speaking for his dad, why can't Pappy speak for himself if he's so disturbed by his party?

[onehandle]

3. Hey, Mittens! Feel that knife in your back?

You're just a fall guy, Mr. Moneybags.

[wordpix]

4. good news, this will add fuel to the fire of the GOP split - could be a trial balloon for RMoney

t-baggers v. "moderate" rethugs, I love it. R-money might be putting Jebbie up to this to test a trial balloon.

[secondvariety]

5. Never thought I'd hear Jeb described as a moderate.

A less insane neo con, maybe. A moderate, no.

[sofa king]

7. Yeah, just like his brother is a moderate drinker.

[Hugabear]

8. He's setting himself up for a 2016 run

He's hoping by that time, a lot of people will have forgotten the W years - and sad part is, I'm sure a lot of people will have.

[bitchkitty]

17. My thought exactly. n/t

[goclark]

30. Is there anyway that he could step in at this point

and run for 2012 ?


May be a stretch but what if something is Uncovered about Rmoney that really blows it?

Help me out, who would replace Rmoney to run against Obama?

Newt?, Rick S., Sarah Palin, Ron Paul?????

How does that work?

[kenfrequed]

11. Hmm

Apart from the strategic movements regarding whether he is setting himself up to run for VP or, more likely, a run on the white house in 2016, it is possible it is an authentic measure of just how radically right wing the republican party has become.

There could be a measure of reality in this. After all, at a certain point in time when you have given everything to the 1% or the .1% or the .01% then what else can you promise to the rest of us? How long would the strange game of musical chair continue?

[Blue_Tires]

14. he's just playing "good cop" for the moment

[kitt6]

25. Bingo!

my thoughts exactly.

[alp227]

22. But Jeb has distanced himself from Tax Cut King/billionaire lobbyist Grover Norquist.

Of course that will not go well with the freeper/drudge/fox crowd since JB is more in line with David Frum. But I agree, if you want moderate GOP see Gerald Ford or Dwight Eisenhower.

[DirkGently]

6. Interesting.

I'm no fan of Jeb's, but it's true that H.W. Bush's style of Republicanism was more subtle than the Birtherism, endless virtual filibusters, and other rigid ideological extremism we see today. Old school elites knew that you could still endlessly feather your nests without resorting to open hostility toward working people, women, gay people, and so forth.

They conjured this demon, relying on Limbaugh / Gingrich - style cultural warfare to reduce our entire national political discourse to a screaming match. They wanted the votes of the religious radicals and the Ayn Rand followers who believe the social contract only has obligations on one side (everyone else's). They got them, but now they're painted into a pretty narrow corner, sworn to never raise taxes and to destroy Medicare and Social Security. And, for extra flair, a medieval view of women's rights.

Maybe it was possible to talk to the "Poppy" Bush Republicans of the past. Maybe this is where the hopelessly failed idea of "triangulation" took root. But we don't live in that world now. We now live in a country in which conservative ideologues in the Supreme Court say corporations are people an money is speech. In which it is argued that "religious freedom" means denying equal rights to gay people and cutting off access to women's health care. Where deficits caused by tax cuts are argued to have been caused by the Kenyan-ness of the Democratic President.

I wouldn't trust Jeb as far as I could throw a Buick, but he has a point here.

As an aside, I wonder if he's bucking for a V.P. nomination.

[sabbat hunter]

9. if he is trying to be a VP

then he is failing by trying to portray himself as a moderate. The GOP wants nothing other than a rightwinger to shore up that side of the party who does not believe that Romney is one of them.

[DirkGently]

21. Maybe. Or maybe they're finally sensing the box

they've put themselves into.

[sofa king]

29. It's a trial balloon for telling the truth.

Radical new ground for them, I know, but it's only temporary. He tells the truth now when it doesn't matter and can't change anything, distances himself from his own record as well as Romney's train wreck, and pads his resume as a "new moderate," or whatever the PR department tells the news to call them.

Then once he gets close enough to steal it, he'll rip off the mask, stage a terrorist attack, and see how much wool has grown back on the sheep since his brother shaved 'em to the hide.

I consider a VP run very unlikely, but if you like long shots, consider this scenario: Jeb steps up his sniping at Mitt and the knuckledraggers, secretly turns down any offers for VP while publicly saying he'd do it, and then founds a new "pretend moderate criminal" party which leaves the GOP holding the bag with the Tri-Kapps, Grover Norquist and the snake handlers in it.

That ends any chance Romney has, lets Jeb dip a toe in national elections without having to take the scrutiny he can't survive, and allows Republicans in Congress to ditch their shitty brand en masse and join the "new Republicans," or whatever the PR department tells the news to call them.

By 2016 the criminals have realigned behind a party without the kooks and baggage, Jeb is its founder and certain nominee, and he cruises to victory over the dead husk of the Republican Party that sacrificed its very existence to make sure President Obama can't succeed.

But that will never happen, because not enough of them are that smart.

[pacalo]

10. He's trying to rehabilitate the "Bush" name for his own future purposes.

His my-way-or-the-highway brother is to blame for the radical right's runaway clown train.

[Marie Marie]

27. Ding Ding Ding - we have a winner.

[DFW]

12. Oh, gimme a BREAK!!!

If the teabaggers and the crazies were polling at 60% nationally, he'd be there carrying a swastika along with the rest of them.

He's just worried because their gazillion dollar budget barely kept their governor in Wisconsin, and doesn't seem to be able to make the rest of America think Obama's a Kenyan Muslim Socialist (yet). If his last name were Blake instead of Bush, no one would even be listening to him at this point.

He cares that the whackos will make them lose. He does not care that they might be outright WRONG.

[WCGreen]

13. Exactly....

Just like his idiot brother...

[cstanleytech]

19. Hey thats not true.

Its actually a Kenyan Muslim Terrorist Socialist Nazi.

Edit: Or atleast thats the shit the nutjobs (aka republicans) have been trying to claim since 2008.

[Dont call me Shirley]

15. Then why did you fix the election twice for your extreme reich wing brother?

Nobody beleives your phony moderateness.

[DonCoquixote]

16. Do not forget

That when Rock Scott won the Governorship, Jeb got cut out of the loop. Bill McCollum was supposed to be his puppet in Tallahassee, and now Rick Scott won't even take his memos. As scary as it sounds, in the spectrum of Florida, Jeb is considered a moderate, but that is only because we have people that make the Confederate States of America look liberal.

[cstanleytech]

18. Thats nice Jeb, I still wont vote for any office in this country. nt

[underpants]

20. He is actually right - the Rpubs have to line up and say YES to all the Fox News talking points

Not this article but one I read today where Jeb says that Romney "may" have been cornered by the primary rhetoric on immigration.

Well DUH Jeb - they had a check list at every debate YES or NO. One NO and you are out.

The problem is that we are supposed to forget anything "Bush" related.
The people who have convinced us that "branding" (laziness) is all it takes now have to deal with the worst STAIN of a brand in this nation's history. And, oddly, the stain is on the utlra elite -- I mean the ULTRA ELITE - "brand" that are the Walkers and the (married in) Bushes.

The really weird part is that as the media filled deadline quotas with "Bill Clinton went rogue" articles Jeb Bush actually went rogue. Raise taxes??? I saw a story about Republicans, even Alan West, saying that we my need to raise some taxes. Jeb is taking one for the team...because why not? his last name once a carte blanche to nominations and baseball stadium deals is TOAST in public opinion.

All that you have to do at this point is read the script. Reagan said that the Presidency of the United States of America was "the greatest role ever" because all he had to do was read the script. In our Fox News nation anyone who reads the script is added to the choir and anyone who doesn't is kicked out of the church - Jeb is going against the dogma......and he wil be ingored by the conservative church for doing so.

[unkachuck]

23. unlike the chimp....

....jebbie is as smooth as silk with no sharp edges that cut....that makes jebbie even more dangerous....

"...an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement..."....you might not define it that way, but that's your party....

....if there is any November backlash to the extreme positions and verbal hostility of the current puke party, jebbie will be in position for the takeover....which tells me some pukes might be expecting a backlash....

....bottom line, whether it's a jebbie or a bagger, pukes will always promote and champion the corporate raping of America. It's in their blood.

[dflprincess]

24. Look on the bright side, if Jeb-Boy is setting himself up for 2016

it means Bushco doesn't expect (or won't allow) Romney to be elected this year because Jebbie wouldn't be setting himself up to run against an incumbant Republican.

The down side could be that the Bushies are plotting a coup for this year's convention.

[Dawson Leery]

26. Someone is clearly laying the ground work for 2016.

[calimary]

28. Hmmm... what's he angling for?

If it's a bush - ALWAYS be suspicious. There's always an ulterior motive. And they're really skilled snakes in the grass.