No, Jeb Bush isn't His 'Own Man'

     It would seem obvious that he isn't. A conservative group is actually calling him 'unelectable' though for a pretty piddly reason: he once gave an award to Hillary Clinton.

    "The conservative reform group For America released a scathing new attack video hitting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) for giving an award to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D). The ad, entitled "Unelectable," uses Clinton's handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi to attack Bush. Both Clinton and Bush are potentially strong 2016 presidential candidates."

     "The video shows a clip of Bush giving Clinton the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center on Sept. 10, 2013, just before the first anniversary of the attack on Benghazi."

      "I want to say thank you to both Secretary Clinton and President Clinton. Thank you for your service to our country. We're united by love of country and public service," Bush says.

On-screen text reads: "Hillary was responsible for the security of the American embassy in Benghazi…She denied repeated requests for additional security…The attacks occurred on her watch…But on the eve of the anniversary of the attacks…Jeb Bush gave her an award for public service."

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/for-america-jeb-bush-hillary-clinton-benghazi

    Ok, one thing we learn from this is that this group, For America, is clueless and hopelessly out of touch with the mainstream. Do they really think that the 2016 election is going to be decided on Benghazi: in other words, a fake scandal that the House GOP lead by Darrell Issa wasted 2 years and lots of tax payer dollars on but which yielded absolutely nothing incriminating at all?

   http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-house-benghazi-20141123-story.html

   If there's no wrongdoing found, how is this going to sink Jeb just for associating with Hillary in any way in public? So For America thinks that this will be a race between the woman who is responsible for Benghazi-though there was no wrongdoing found-and the man who shook her hand in public? This is up there with the famous Hug between Chris Christie and President Obama. 

   Still, as clueless as For America is, they show why Jeb Bush or any other GOP candidate can't be their own man.

   Based on a recent speech, Bush seems to think the winning ticket is to talk about being the little brother of George W. Bush. 

    "He is expected to embrace the legacies of his father, George H. W. Bush and his brother, George W. Bush, by saying that he has been “lucky” to have family members “who both have shaped America’s foreign policy from the Oval Office.”

     “I recognize that as a result, my views will often be held up in comparison to theirs’— sometimes in contrast to theirs’,” he will add, according to prepared remarks provided by his aides in advance. “I love my father and my brother. I admire their service to the nation and the difficult decisions they had to make. But I am my own man — and my views are shaped by my own thinking and own experiences. Each president learns from those who came before — their principles … their adjustments. One thing we know is this: Every president inherits a changing world … and changing circumstances.”

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/02/18/how-to-know-whether-jeb-bushd-really-is-his-own-man/

     This goes to show the GOP never learns anything-they consider it a badge of honor to learn nothing. In 2012 they said they'd learnt their lesson on immigration at least after Romney's bad loss. Subsequent history has shown they learnt nothing. 

     After 2013 they had allegedly sworn off government shutdowns but are no threatening to shutdown the Department of Homeland Security. You think they might of at least learnt their lesson on George W. Bush who is toxic with the public. But no-they were even thinking of running Mitt Romney again until he was forced to sit in honor of Jeb. 

     Now Jeb thinks that talking about his big brother is going to make people vote for him? As Waldman says, though, the bigger problem is the party he comes from where it's not possible to be his own man. Think about how while Jeb personally supports immigration reform he's totally in a straitjacket forcing him to take a a wholly untenable position that pleases nobody. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-immigration-jeb-bushs-position-is-as.html

    The reason he does that is because of the For Americas of the world and the whole GOP complex which doesn't let anyone chart their own course. 

     "The real question, however, is less whether Jeb Bush can be his own man in relation to his brother and father — who, after all, conducted foreign policy in extremely different ways — but whether he can be his own man in relation to the rest of the Republican Party. As we come to the end of eight years in which hatred of Barack Obama has come to define every position the Republican Party takes, will there be any room for a Republican presidential candidate to have an original thought on foreign policy?"

     Waldman lists 10 questions on foreign policy Jeb should have to answer but the first one I'd love to see him squirm on is the one that asks if the Iraq war was a good idea? How can he possibly say no and it not hit too close too home? To say it was a bad idea is a rebuke against his own brother. This underscores the problem that as unpopular as W was this will be an albatross around his neck he won't escape from soon.     

    "Given everything that has happened in the last twelve years, was invading Iraq a good idea? Why or why not? This isn’t a “gotcha” to get Bush to disagree with his brother’s actions. The Iraq War was probably the single biggest blunder in American foreign policy history, one that not only cost us a couple of trillion dollars and the lives of 4,000 servicemembers, but sent ripples of chaos spreading throughout the Middle East. What has Bush learned from that history? Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been deeply affected by his reluctance to repeat George W. Bush’s mistake and produce the universe of unintended consequences that comes with a large-scale ground operation in the Middle East. How does Jeb Bush understand what happened there, and how would it affect his decisions in the future?"

     See, I think he'll see it as a gotcha question and that the only right answer is to embrace it as disagreement means a rebuike of his brother. If I'm running against him, I bring up Iraq as much as possible. If his views are no differnt than W's here I don't think that will be a very popular position as most Americans are sick of war in Iraq and W. 

     I think it goes back to the old saying: what's in a name? I think it's going to be impossible for him to run from his. Embracing it will only make it worse.