Posted on 05/12/2015 7:50:13 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Would you let Donald Trump tell you where to get a haircut? Would you take driving tips from Lindsay Lohan? Or ask Sarah Palin’s advice about … anything?
Whom we seek advice from reveals a lot about ourselves, our judgment, our common sense. So it was a shock over the past week when presidential candidate in training Jeb Bush divulged that his closest adviser on Mideast and Israeli affairs is George W. Bush.
I actually blinked when I read that. George W. used to make jokes about his own intelligence. Or lack thereof. This was one of his favorite anecdotes:
“Don’t try to be charming, witty or intelligent,” Laura Bush told her husband as he began his campaign for president. “Just be yourself.”
As the years went by, that got less and less funny. And today, many look at George W. Bush and see the man who launched a disastrous war in Iraq that killed thousands and squandered trillions.
But not his brother Jeb. “If you want to know who I listen to for advice, it’s him,” Jeb said of George W. last Tuesday at a secret meeting for fat-cat investors in New York.
Which leads me to wonder just how many times Jeb was dropped on his head as a child.
History will record that George W. Bush’s most significant contribution to world history was invading Iraq under the totally false notion that Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.
The Iraq War of 2003-11 resulted in 4,488 U.S. dead and 32,222 U.S. wounded, and cost more than $2 trillion.
According to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, the war also “killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number.”
Well, stuff happens. You want an omelet, you’ve got to break some eggs. And at least we got something out of the war, right?
Well, not so much.
A summary of the Brown report said, "The United States gained little" from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it. The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women’s rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system.
“Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud.”
According to Robert Costa and Matea Gold of The Washington Post, one attendee of the fat-cat meeting in New York “was ‘stunned’ to hear Jeb Bush specifically mention George W. Bush as his go-to adviser. ‘I started looking around and wondering if people were recording it. It was jarring,’ the attendee said. ‘If video of it got out, it’d be devastating.’’’
Maybe. Maybe not. A few days after the New York gathering, Jeb Bush told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly: “I would have [authorized the invasion of Iraq], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody.”
And “just for the news flash to the world, if they’re trying to find places where there’s big space between me and my brother, this might not be one of those,” Jeb said.
Yeah, what the heck. It was just a war. And some really, really smart people were all for it. People like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
When you’re president, you pick the people you want around you and then you listen to them.
Some 71 percent of Americans believe the Iraq War “wasn’t worth it,” according to a June 2014 NBC/WSJ poll. But it’s easy to criticize after the fact.
Back before the war started, it was the men and women gathered in the Situation Room and the Oval Office who advised the president on the war-or-peace, life-or-death decisions.
And choosing those people is one of the most important things a president does.
So to fully appreciate the importance of Jeb’s revelation that George W. will be his chief adviser when it comes to the Mideast, you’ve got to keep in mind that Jeb’s entire campaign is built around one selling point:
Jeb is the smart one in the family.
Yes, I would ask Sarah Palin’s advice on many things such as how to deal with rats and the traitors in your own state government, for starters.
I don’t think it was “dropped on his head” that makes him like he is today. I think it is something else entirely.
I won’t go into how one describes a man so wrongly influenced by their ‘significant’ other, but the usual descriptions are very crude, indeed.
Keep on Diggin, Jebby.
If so, not hard enough. I wish someone would drop him on his head now. All he does is run his mouth and make more trouble.
When he asks Roger Simon for advice, start running.
I caught that too and that’s were I stopped reading.
Then again, it's Propagandico, so I know what I'm getting when I read there.
Looking at some of Roger Simon’s other stuff, he may have a great deal of experience with being dropped on his head.
Yeah, I noticed that too. The author just had to get in a very nasty swipe at Palin. I'd ask that worthy journalist: Who was the first major political figure to warn that Putin had his sights on the Ukraine?
I too noted that gratuitous slap at Sarah Palin. Actually I would be interested in her opinion of many things. Remember that the liberals trashed her and created the caricature of her which persists among too many people.
You would think the liberals would keep their powder dry until AFTER Bush and the GOPe buy the nomination.
If GWB actually learned some lessons from what failed, there could be worse places for wisdom.
I’d think (hope) he’d say, for heaven’s sake this time around don’t think setting up a democracy is going to head off anarchy in a conquered country. The middle east is not Japan or Korea or Germany. Different culture, different norms. Something like the former Shah of Iran is about as good as you can hope while the culture does not change.
I would love to ask her opinion of you, Roger Simon.
I’m never voting for a Democrat in an R jersey again.
(even if Hillary thanks me/s)
Instead of a ring on his finger, Jeb’s wife put a ring through his nose.
We should have dumped them with Bush Sr said NWO and vodo economics.
This from a website that thinks Obama wrote ‘Dreams’? Yeah, they’re credible.../s
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