Jeb Bush gets on the right page – Steve Benen of MaddowBlog reports how Republicans never make a mistake:
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as his brother and then-president George W. Bush did, he told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in an interview to be aired Monday. …
Note the evolution in Jeb Bush’s approach to the issue. Just three months ago, asked about the disastrous war in Iraq, the Florida Republican told reporters, “I won’t talk about the past…. If I’m in the process of considering the possibility of running, it’s not about re-litigating anything in the past.” Soon after, Jeb Bush was willing to concede “mistakes were made,” but he wouldn’t say who made the mistakes or how he would have done anything different.
Jon Green at AMERICA blog thinks Jeb is doing the right thing:
But here’s the thing: despite the baggage George W. Bush would bring as a surrogate, Jeb probably loses less by embracing his record than he gains by distancing himself from it. No matter what he says about the previous Bush administration, he’s going to be tied to it. If he runs from it, it’ll be seen as a political dodge. Owning the issue tells voters that he doesn’t think it’s a liability, so they shouldn’t, either. Given that Hillary’s position on the Iraq War is, for all intents and purposes, the same as Jeb’s — “We made the best decision we could given the information we had.” — Jeb does more to defuse Iraq as a 2016 campaign issue by embracing the invasion than he does by criticizing it. As there is no clear separation between any of the 2016 frontrunners on the issue, none of them feel any particular need to play defense on it.
This may be true for the Republican base, to which he is initially playing, but Independents, who he would have to win over for the general election, should have more critical faculties and be willing to say, If he doesn’t seem Iraq as a critical mistake, even a lie as Andrew Sullivan eventually decided, then why should we cast a vote for him?
This is, at best, a roll of the die.
