Monday, December 19, 2011

Jeb Bush weighs in...coincidence? (updated)

Perhaps I'm over-reacting, but I find two things that happened today to be very interesting. First of all, Republican heavy-weight Bill Kristol ponders the possibility of a brokered Republican convention (he prefers the word "deliberative").

Thus, once every three-quarters of a century or so, the delegates to an American political convention deliberate, and their deliberations produce a notable and impressive outcome. It could happen again in 2012. It could fall to the Republican delegates convening in Tampa, after they have cast their committed first ballot vote and failed to produce a majority for any candidate, to act as a real deliberative convention. It could fall to them to use their judgment to select the best possible nominee for their party and the best possible president for their country.

It would be exciting. It would be nerve-wracking. It would be unpredictable. It hasn’t happened in quite a while. But it could happen. And it could be a good thing for the Republican party.

He's not talking about delegates deliberating about choosing one of the current candidates.

And a deadlocked convention, which then became a deliberative convention, could be a good thing, because most sentient Republicans, and most conscientious conservatives, suspect we can do better than the current field.

Almost simultaneously, the long silent Jeb Bush published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. With flowery language, Mr. Bush is basically making a case for the Republican agenda...lower taxes and less government regulation. He casts it all in language about "economic freedom," which he calls "the right to rise." But mostly hidden between the lines is the suggestion that we need to let people fail and experience the consequences of their "bad decisions." In other words, he's merely parroting the exact same policies of his brother George that got us into this mess in the first place.

So...is this all just a coincidence? Or is the Republican establishment preparing to offer us a Bush redux? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Update: The WSJ's Stephen Moore discussed JB on Fox News this morning.

2 comments:

  1. That's all America needs is another rat bastard bu$h.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Years ago during the S&L mess, Mother Jones published a piece on all the slimy things the Bush kids have done, and I recall Jeb was involved in some kind of Medicare fraud (can't quite remember any of the details.) So yeah - the 'freedom to rise" seems to be do whatever you can get away with especially at the taxpayers' expense. Nice guys, these Bush brothers. NOT!

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