Jeb Bush seems like a smart guy and that makes it even harder to believe that he'd fall so easily for the MSM line of supposed extremism
dominating the GOP:
Let’s play a game that we used to play in school, and lay out a
series of data points to see if anyone can guess what they have in
common. Ready? Here we go:
- Bush, Bush, Dole, Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney
What’s the answer? As George Will insisted yesterday on ABC’s This Week, it sure isn’t extremism, despite what Jeb Bush thinks:
“Well, let’s look at the facts,” Will said. “Since Ronald
Reagan, the Republican Party has given its presidential nomination four
times to the Bush family. Other times, to Bob Dole, John McCain and
Mitt Romney — where’s the extremist in that lot? Now, Jeb Bush’s father
is celebrated today for a statesman ship that consisted of breaking the
promise to the American people of not raising taxes. He had a budget
deal in 1990, Austan [Goolsbee] because this goes back to something you
said earlier. In the budget deal it was said for every $2 of — every
dollar of tax increase, would be $2 of spending cuts. The tax increases
went into effect and spending increased.”
Will added that it is popular for observers to romanticize
politicians like Reagan, along with conservative commentator William
Buckley and 1964 presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, after the fact.
“We’re going through this — we go through this all the time,” he
continued. “About 20 years after a conservative leaves the scene or
dies, he becomes acceptable. They said, ‘If only people were more like
Ronald Reagan, that wonderful libertarian curmudgeon Barry Goldwater and
that fine fellow Bill Buckley.’ I worked for Bill Buckley, voted for
Barry Goldwater, knew Ronald Reagan and no one talked about him on the
left that way at the time.”
For that matter, take a look at the main contenders in the Republican
primary this year, once the voting started. The race came down to Mitt
Romney, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum. All of these men
had good qualities and shortcomings, but none of them are known for
their extremist bent, no matter what the hyperventilating media might
have said at the time. All four represented the same mainstreams in
Republican politics that existed when Reagan was President, and have
ever since.
It seems especially churlish to hear this kind of complaint coming
from former Governor Jeb Bush after watching his father and brother rack
up more than half of the GOP’s presidential nominations in the last 30
years. Will does a nice job with Bush’s hanging curve and knocks it out
of the park.
RELATED: Jeb Bush urges Romney: change the tone on immigration
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