Jeb Bush

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“Mr. Trump Thinks The Menstrual Cycle Is A Handicap”

January 27, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

trumpmegyn

Donald Trump, Pol Pot with hair plugs, is like all bullies, a coward. His behavior stems from weakness and insecurity, so he can be handled. Jeb!, the favored son of a privileged family, doesn’t have adequate experience neutralizing such toxic types, but there are sure ways to deal. Lecture him about it in a mature way like Bernie Sanders and the hideous hotelier looks small. Aggressively return his obnoxious behavior like Megyn Kelly and he positively wilts. 

Women in particular throw Trump for a loss because he’s spent his life making sure he’s in a superior position to the ones in his life. He controls the purse strings and they should bleed in silence. Edward Luce’s latest Financial Times column about the 2016 race looks at this particular Trump shortcoming. The opening:

Hillary Clinton should be celebrating. Donald Trump’s decision to boycott the Fox News debate was ostensibly about ratings. How can the cable network make money without his celebrity pull? Mr Trump may prove his point when Thursday night’s viewership numbers come in.

But switching channels is not the same thing as showing up at a polling booth. More than half America’s electorate is female — they accounted for 53 per cent of the vote in the last election. Even the most apathetic will by now have heard Mr Trump’s opinions about Megyn Kelly, the Fox anchor, who will co-host the debate. Ms Kelly is a “bimbo”, according to Mr Trump, who is incapable of objectivity when there is “blood coming out of her whatever”.

So that is settled. Mr Trump thinks the menstrual cycle is a handicap. He also recoils at other female bodily functions. When Mrs Clinton took a bathroom break at a recent Democratic debate, Mr Trump described her as “disgusting”. He used the same word about an opposing lawyer in a 2011 hearing when she asked for a short break to pump breast milk. Looks are also fair game. Among those attacked for their appearance are the actress Bette Midler (“extremely unattractive”), Angelina Jolie (“she’s been with so many guys she makes me look like a baby”), media figure Arianna Huffington (“unattractive both inside and out”), fellow Republican candidate Carly Fiorina (“look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?”) and comedian Rosie O’Donnell (“fat pig”).

None of which has done Mr Trump’s ratings any harm. The more controversial a celebrity, the bigger audiences they attract. The question is whether there is any longer a meaningful distinction between show business and US politics. Do ratings equal votes?•

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“It Was A Who’s-Who Of Mistake-Makers”

May 15, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

I’ve said this before, but before we vote for any politician it would be really instructive to study where they stood at the time of the 2008 economic collapse and in its aftermath. Those who argued for austerity, for taking money out of a greatly diminished economy, should have to answer serious questions about that stance. 

In a similar vein, the Dubya tragedy of the Iraq War is playing out again with Jeb Bush running for President. That’s not merely because his brother oversaw the disaster–though he agreed, if fleetingly, that he would still have supported the invasion knowing what we now know–but also due his staffing up with some of the “stars” of his sibling’s inner circle. You shouldn’t be damned for making a mistake but perhaps you should be if it was such a damnable one.

From Paul Krugman at the New York Times:

Jeb Bush wants to stop talking about past controversies. And you can see why. He has a lot to stop talking about. But let’s not honor his wish. You can learn a lot by studying recent history, and you can learn even more by watching how politicians respond to that history.

The big “Let’s move on” story of the past few days involved Mr. Bush’s response when asked in an interview whether, knowing what he knows now, he would have supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He answered that yes, he would. No W.M.D.? No stability after all the lives and money expended? No problem.

Then he tried to walk it back. He “interpreted the question wrong,” and isn’t interested in engaging “hypotheticals.” Anyway, “going back in time” is a “disservice” to those who served in the war.

Take a moment to savor the cowardice and vileness of that last remark. And, no, that’s not hyperbole. Mr. Bush is trying to hide behind the troops, pretending that any criticism of political leaders — especially, of course, his brother, the commander in chief — is an attack on the courage and patriotism of those who paid the price for their superiors’ mistakes. That’s sinking very low, and it tells us a lot more about the candidate’s character than any number of up-close-and-personal interviews.

Wait, there’s more: Incredibly, Mr. Bush resorted to the old passive-voice dodge, admitting only that “mistakes were made.” Indeed. By whom? Well, earlier this year Mr. Bush released a list of his chief advisers on foreign policy, and it was a who’s-who of mistake-makers, people who played essential roles in the Iraq disaster and other debacles.•

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4 Quick Thoughts About CPAC

March 17, 2013 in Politics | Permalink

  • During the election, when the notion that a reelected President Obama would be greeted by a chastened opposition, I wrote that I didn’t believe it, that we would be as politically divided as ever. That’s proven to be true. 
  • Jeb Bush can insist that the problem with the GOP is one of messaging, but he’s wrong. In his CPAC address, he said: “Way too many people believe Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker.” And people believe that because they’ve been paying attention. That is now the orthodoxy of the Republicans and in a world with a decentralized media, there’s no way to cover it up. Bush himself may not be any of these horrible things, but he’s now a clear minority in his own party.
  • The battle between the establishment wing of the party (Rove, Gingrich, etc.) and the protest wing (Paul, Cruz, etc.) presents two competing sides with no chance of victory. If Rove and Gingrich think Republicans need more mainstream candidates and ideas, they’re right, but they’re the wrong ones to be leading the charge. They’ve spent decades helping to mix the party’s poisonous cocktail of race-baiting and divisiveness and now they’re choking on that drink. The extremists they’ve always found useful as foot soldiers in their cynical campaigns for power are now the generals. Meanwhile, the Tea Party is unelectable and incoherent. Bile isn’t a platform.
  • This version of the GOP will have no moment when clarity appears, no waterloo when it corrects course–it’s in a death spiral. What emerges–and when it emerges–is anyone’s guess.•

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“Then, One Year, A Powerful Meteor Struck The Planet”

March 12, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

If moderate conservatives like Jeb Bush are unable to rescue the Republican Party from its own extremism, if Presidential nomination victories become consistently Pyrrhic and disqualifying, will we see the emergence of a more centrist conservative party? Or is the madness of the GOP just a cycling out that will ultimately run its course? Nobody can sum up the Republicans’ recent rocky road and the fork that led it to its precarious current position more eloquently than Louis Menand does this week in the opening of his New Yorker piece, “Money Pol.” An excerpt:

“Once, when winters were cold and the world seemed large, creatures roamed the earth who were permissive on social issues and at ease with big government, yet remained ever faithful to the gods of business and finance. Their principles were abstract but broad-minded: tolerance, free trade, and a belief in something called the American Way. Their personal tastes were conventional. They were surprisingly allergic to indecorum, and disinclined to question the status quo. But they were not small-town or provincial; they were Wall Streeters, not Main Streeters. Their vista was international. They were private-sector types who answered the call to public service. They were liberal Republicans. Nelson Rockefeller was such a creature. So were Prescott Bush, William Scranton, Charles Percy, John Lindsay, Mark Hatfield, Elliot Richardson, and George Romney.

Then, one year, a powerful meteor struck the planet, and, virtually overnight, the entire species was wiped out. The meteor’s name was Ronald Reagan. Political paleontologists, looking back at the fossil record, can detect signs pointing to the organism’s imminent extinction that predate the Reagan era. Richard Nixon, for example, showed that a pro-business, big-government Republican, by appealing to suburban anti-Communism and white working-class resentment, could take a populist road to the White House. Men like Rockefeller and Romney despised Nixon; but they could never beat him. Liberal Republicans did not like to get into the political mud.”

••••••••••

Nelson Rockefeller, 1964: “The Republican Party must repudiate these people.”

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