I am a woman. And a Liberal. As such, I am outraged and disgusted by the entire Conservative field of Presidential hopefuls for 2016. For some reason, however, Jeb Bush is the most offensive to me. All of the other candidates on the right are overtly pandering to the radicals of their party by repeating hateful rhetoric for all who don't meet their restricted standards for 'patriots.' Jeb is waiting for them to whittle the field because they will all count one another out and leave him alone as the more centrist candidate. Of course, those of us who actually pay attention know there is nothing centrist about him (or Walker, Kasich or any of the others who will be peddled out later). He, like the rest, has shown actual disdain for women.
Last week Jeb Bush was publicly outed for having written a book and passing a law in the 90s to literally shame unwed mothers. He responded by telling America that he had evolved. An evolution of ideas and understandings is a beautiful thing; I dare say it means one is being Progressive. And it is something he managed to prove the Conservatives are still unable to do in his response. As he is seemingly unaware, having put the world 'evolved' into his sentence didn't actually mean that he has. The remaining part of the quote was, "In fact, since 1995 ... this book was a book about cultural indicators [and] the country has moved in the wrong direction. We have a 40-plus percent out-of-wedlock birth rate."
Right. Jeb not only failed to back track on his position, he managed to wax poetic about his own prophetic insistence on where our culture was headed. He fails to even consider that maybe his idea of a perfect family might be just a bit narrow. He believes that a family is incomplete and children cannot have "lives of purpose and meaning" in a single parent home. I feel pretty confident that my daughter, who is now grown and in her senior year of college, would disagree. I bet there are scores of millions of children who would disagree. Of course, my child was never arrested for public intoxication or trying to illegally obtain prescription drugs, either. So I guess there are some lessons Jeb could've taught my daughter that she missed out on. I'll just have to hope she turns out okay in the end.
A lot has been made about Jeb Bush or Secretary Clinton potentially being nominated as a part of a dynasty. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. We had Theodore Roosevelt and then Franklin D. If we could have then had Eleanor, the niece of Theodore and wife of Franklin, that would've been a beautiful revelation for the country. On myriad levels. I imagine we would be a much healthier nation if that could've happened. But, of course, it never did so having fantasies about where we could be now is irrelevant. The Bush legacy, however, is a terrifying prospect. Honestly.
I'm sorry, but if you enter a campaign with a running mate who cannot spell the word 'potato(e?)' history cannot be expected to remember you kindly. Are we meant to have already forgotten all about George H W Bush's failed presidency where he waited less than 18 months for his proposal to negate his campaign slogan of "No New Taxes"? Or his veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1990? And then, I suppose, we should also forget the fact that the first war in Iraq was his creation and offered a singular objective for Bush 43 to complete once the Supreme Court and Florida (ehem) handed him to us as our President.
The George W Bush presidency. Sigh. Do I have to? 9/11. Iraq war. Katrina. That funny 'lock box' came up empty. Deregulating banks. I can't do this. Remembering him gives me hives (not kidding). Here follow this link if you are made of stronger metal than I obviously am.
Jeb Bush seems to want us to forget about his family legacy. He tells us he is his own man. But he also told us that those advising him on foreign policy were many who had advised his father and his brother. And, possibly even more terrifying, in May, when asked who would be on his team of advisers he listed his brother George. Absolutely! Have a quiet moment with that vision.
Jeb's arrogance has been acknowledged repeatedly during the last six months with his unwillingness to answer questions and behaving as if he has already won the nomination. It must be pretty profound if he thinks he is going to tell America that he wants his brother to help him on foreign policy and believe that we will not begin crawling out of our own skin. Or, just maybe there is something to the recent scientific breakthrough of the 'stupid gene.'
No matter the reason, I feel confident that his own legacy as a governor and that of his family will keep him away from the general election. I doubt he will even make it through the primaries, either. Then we can have more time to bathe in the insanity of the nominees who have even less tact than Jeb and who you don't even have to search for sound bites to embarrass. Won't that be fun?
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