But, you believe . . . Who?
“I am for an immigration policy that’s welcoming and upholds the law,” Bush said. (multiple sources)
Ok, the first part of that essentially means nothing, other than being "decent", etc., toward people legally entitled to come here. The second part includes vetting of those desiring an immigrant visa to the U.S. That vetting is part of the law, and at least during Bush's terms, was pursued fairly vigorously. (Someone VERY close to me went through that vetting, which was in the process of being ramped up even further at the time.)
“I think it’s very important for all of us to recognize one of our great strengths is for people to be able to worship the way they want to or not worship at all,” Bush said. “A bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship freely.”
“People who murder the innocent are not religious people,” Bush said. “They want to advance an ideology. And we have faced those kind of ideologues in the past.”
Well, shoot, if all Muslims are murderers or support murder of innocents*, then Bush has just discredited the whole religion.
*I do not believe this -- there is great difference of thought within the Muslim community; it's just that too few have the courage, of, say, Egypt's Sisi to come out and publicly say things against fundamentalist / radical Islam. But, to be fair, the potential retribution of radicals would alter what many would say or even think.
“I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy,” Bush said. “That we need an independent media to hold people like me to account. Power can be very addictive. And it can be corrosive.”
Now, c'mon, FReepers! Actually analyze that statement instead of knee-jerking or falling for the MSM spin. What part of the media is NOT independent? Who are "people like me"? (That sure is not Trump, it seems.) And who are the real power brokers, esp. those least answerable to the people, and corroding our freedoms and society the most?
“it’s kind of hard to tell others to have an independent free press and we’re not willing to have one ourself.”
WHO has the media monopoly (or at least most of it) in this country?
What's happening here is that people are falling for the MSM spin on what Bush says, rather than seeing that he, probably by design, is playing with the semantics.
Now, would I prefer that Bush say "Hey, I'm 100% behind Trump?" Well, no. No one would believe him. What about "As I see it, if this President wants to point out what he sees as unfair coverage, and if that wing of the press wants to criticize him, both have the right to do so, and it is not my place to try to referee." Sure, I'd prefer that, but I'm not an ex-President.
As for the past, Bush was good in some areas, not so good in others, and way better than Gore or Kerry.
Now, it is certainly possible other statements Bush made are more damning. If so, hopefully someone else can find and post them. I am in desperate need of sleep, "tomorrow" is going to be a typical "end-of-month-killer", and it starts for me in 2 hrs.!
zzzzzzzz