“That
no instruction should have been drawn from constant and adverse experience;
that the same confidence should have repeatedly grown from the same failures”
------Edward Gibbon, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”
Gail Collins, writing in yesterday’s Op-Ed
section of “The New York Times”, cited
a week-old report from “The
Washington Post” that John Edward Bush, known to all and
sundry as ‘Jeb’, demonstrated that he too has failed to draw any instruction
from constant and adverse experience.
In an interview with Faux News host Megyn
Kelly Bush responded that “knowing what we know now” he would have done
precisely what his brother did and invaded Iraq. After claiming that Hillary Clinton would do
the same thing, if she could go back in time, one would think that he misheard
the question. “Apparently not”, wrote Collins. “He then went on: ‘I mean, so just for the
news flash to the world if they’re trying to find places where there’s big
space between me and my brother, this might not be one of those.”’ (1)
Realizing that he had indeed stepped into
some ‘deep doo-doo’ as his Yankee patrician father would say, Bush went into
immediate damage control appearing on Sean Hannity’s radio talk show saying “I
was talking about given what people knew then, would you have done it, rather
than knowing what we know now. And knowing what we know now, you know, clearly
there were mistakes.” Seeking to
extricate himself from this emerging quagmire he finished by declaring that
asking ‘hypothetical’ questions were a disservice to our fighting men and
women.
Collins summed it up pretty well: “We had
now learned” she wrote “that: 1) Jeb Bush still thinks invading Iraq was a good
idea; and 2) he has inherited more of the family syntax issues than we knew.” She
also alluded to a third: ‘Jeb’ is here displaying the prevailing family trait
of gross incompetence. But it isn't simply the amateurish miscues of his nascent campaign that is troubling, it is that ‘Jeb’ should retrench to the position of ‘given what we knew then...’ The
point is that his brother should have known better back then. Any acquaintance with the history of the region
or with any history at all, would have counseled caution. Anyone, except the band of yahoos who
surrounded George would have known better, even a maintenance man working in an
apartment complex in Athens, Georgia.
Bush, of course, was wrong to try to
involve Hillary in this muddle, but as he struggled with the ‘tar-baby’ that is
Iraq and the Middle East he did bring attention to one of the central issues in
the upcoming campaign for the presidency; and that is the question of lineal
succession. Already Bill’s former team
is in the process of decamping from the Obama administration and taking up
residence again with the Clintons in preparation for the coming
restoration. So, too, is the host of
Neo-Con fools who piloted the administrations of ‘Ol Two-Cows’ into the morass
of Middle East conflict. The same faces,
the same policies, the same probable outcomes.
As Clinton operative James Carville is
wont to ask: “When did the Republicans last win a presidential election without
having a Nixon or a Bush on the ticket”? The answer: 1928 with Hoover and
Coolidge. With this in mind, the “Eastern
Establishment”, that is the moneyed interests within the party, will not look
long or hard at the clown band currently boarding the bus. Instead all eyes will turn to the “House of
Bush” in order to effect a restoration of their own.
If one were to pose the same question to
the Democrats it would be: “when last did the Democrats win a presidential
election without having a Clinton or a candidate not backed by Clinton
operatives?” The answer: 1976 with Jimmy
Carter and Walter Mondale. Hillary, it
will be recalled, loudly complained in one of the debates that most of her
husband’s former advisors had deserted her in favor of Obama. They are now
flocking back to the roost.
This is troubling on several levels. It is not a coincidence that ‘Jeb’ would reach
out to the other perceived ‘front-runner’ for validation. He is not here establishing credibility by
demonstrating a deep understanding of the complexities of foreign affairs. He
is, however, attempting to establish credibility by associating himself with
the country’s other ruling family. Diminutive trees and aristocrats behave like
this. The same confidence repeatedly grows from the same failures.
______________
1.http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/opinion/gail-collins-wow-jeb-bush-is-awful.html?_r=1
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