I couldn't disagree with him more here:
"Ezra Klein today:
"I don't know if Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination. But even if he doesn't, it's increasingly clear he's going to destroy Jeb Bush before he loses....Trump insists that [George] Bush was president both prior to and during the 9/11 attacks, and he was therefore at least partly responsible for the security failures that permitted the tragedy."
"I'm not so sure. As I recall, liberals spent a lot of time in the mid-aughts trying to make the case that George Bush was negligent in protecting the country before the 9/11 attacks—Exhibit A being the infamous Presidential Daily Brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." You'd think that would be pretty devastating, but it had its 15 minutes of fame and then faded out even among lefties. I doubt it will have any greater effect now, especially in a Republican primary."
"What it will do, unfortunately, is almost guarantee that it comes up as a question in the next Republican debate. Debate moderators seem to be wholly unable to ignore juicy Trump bait like this. That's too bad. I don't really care about relitigating George Bush's negligence prior to 9/11, but I do care about letting Trump set the terms of the campaign. Enough."
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/donald-trump-brought-it-lets-ask-him-evidence-he-fought-against-going-iraq
"Ezra Klein today:
"I don't know if Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination. But even if he doesn't, it's increasingly clear he's going to destroy Jeb Bush before he loses....Trump insists that [George] Bush was president both prior to and during the 9/11 attacks, and he was therefore at least partly responsible for the security failures that permitted the tragedy."
"I'm not so sure. As I recall, liberals spent a lot of time in the mid-aughts trying to make the case that George Bush was negligent in protecting the country before the 9/11 attacks—Exhibit A being the infamous Presidential Daily Brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." You'd think that would be pretty devastating, but it had its 15 minutes of fame and then faded out even among lefties. I doubt it will have any greater effect now, especially in a Republican primary."
"What it will do, unfortunately, is almost guarantee that it comes up as a question in the next Republican debate. Debate moderators seem to be wholly unable to ignore juicy Trump bait like this. That's too bad. I don't really care about relitigating George Bush's negligence prior to 9/11, but I do care about letting Trump set the terms of the campaign. Enough."
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/donald-trump-brought-it-lets-ask-him-evidence-he-fought-against-going-iraq
Well if he doesn't care about it that's his mistake. Perhaps he and I have different priorities. I don't have any problem with Trump setting the campaign agenda of the Republican campaign and wonder why Drum cares so passionately about that?
Most Beltway insiders like Drum have been dead wrong about Trump and this entire GOP field. They are determined to impose what they consider the 'rules of gravity in political campaigns' as they see fit and are frustrated how wrong they have been again and again.
Vox had a useful collage of all the breathless media reports that claimed that Biden is about to announce, any day now just like today's new supposed deadline-before Benghazi.
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9567529/biden-decision-timeline
The only media meme more tired than when Biden gets in is when Trump finally 'goes too far.' Now we're supposed to believe that criticizing George W. Bush is going to be that smoking gun that will finally lead to his decline.
McCain was supposed to be that, then the first debate, then the second debate-Firoina's face, etc.-now it's the wholly shrine of W?
Here's what I care about. Not protecting Drum's false sense of Beltway propriety but rather making sure that there are no more Bushes. If someone other than him ends up with the GOP nomination this is already a victory-though I guess it's close with Rubio as Rubio will enable GOP to say Latinos should vote for him just because he's a Latino.
Parenthetically, I think the whole error in Rubio's narrative is to think that biography can trump policy: that Latinos will vote for a Latino over a 'Gringo' like HRC even if she has better Latino policies than him. He also has used this ageist attack on her to say he is fresh.
But the age of the candidates and of the ideas are different things.
I think Drum is fooling himself if he thinks Americans now love W and that Jeb's embracing him is not a disaster regardless of the specifics over 9/11 or WMD. I think it's the overall narrative and I don't think the base will hold this against Trump as he frames it as being about W's allegedly weak immigration policy pre 9/11 and Jeb represents the establishment more than anyone that the base loathes. I think they will enjoy seeing Trump kick sand in his face again.
As for Drum, his take on this couldn't be lamer and besides the point. He thinks Trump should be pushed on his claim to oppose the Iraq War. Why? What is the value of that?
Look we already know that everything Trump says can be taken with a grain of salt. Does Drum think this is the scoop of the century?
More important in my mind is wrapping W around Jeb. The tighter Jeb embraces W the bigger disaster it will be. The real takeaway is as Ezra Klein says but Drum tries to resist: Jeb hugs W ever closer.
W remains very unpopular. I know more recent polls are more positive but that always happens when someone is out of the political fray. If he is reintroduced into the political fray it will be catastrophic for Jeb.
So Jeb's attempt to raise money off of Trump's comments and next week even campaign with W and the other Bushes I think will prove a disaster that he is running towards.
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