Posted on 10/21/2015 11:29:25 AM PDT by Isara
Call it George W. unplugged.
The other day at a Jeb Bush fundraiser in Denver, Politico reported multiple accounts of former President George W. Bush zeroing in on one of brother Jeb’s GOP opponents—and no, it wasn’t Donald Trump. Here’s the Politico headline:
George W. Bush unleashes on Ted Cruz
'I just don't like that guy,' the former president tells donors.
In other words?
Inside a sleek Denver condominium, George W. Bush let a hundred donors to his brother’s campaign in on a secret. Of all the rival Republican candidates, there is one who gets under the former president’s skin, whom he views as perhaps Jeb Bush’s most serious rival for the party’s nomination.
…t’s George W. Bush’s former employee — Ted Cruz.
“I just don’t like the guy,” Bush said Sunday night, according to conversations with more than half a dozen donors who attended the event.
…Bush also cast Cruz’s candidacy as an exercise in personal gain, not service. “He sort of looks at this like Cruz is doing it all for his own personal gain, and that’s juxtaposed against a family that’s been all about public service and doing it for the right reasons," a donor said. "He's frustrated to have watched Cruz basically hijack the Republican Party of Texas and the Republican Party in Washington."
When one reads this Politico account of former President Bush 43 saying Ted Cruz has “hijacked” the GOP in Texas and Washington, what he’s really saying is that the son of the Trojan Horse, one of the folks who “cut the fuse” on the future of the Reagan Revolution, is unhappy that the Reagan Revolution has endured and that Ted Cruz is reclaiming lost territory in the Republican Party.
It is noteworthy how Cruz himself has responded. In his typical classy style, the former Bush staffer and candidate for the White House said this:
I have great respect for George W Bush, and was proud to work on his 2000 campaign and in his administration. It’s no surprise that President Bush is supporting his brother and attacking the candidates he believes pose a threat to his campaign. I have no intention of reciprocating. I met my wife Heidi working on his campaign, and so I will always be grateful to him.
Classy, courteous, yet refusing to abandon conviction. As it were: Reaganesque.
Make no mistake. The sentiments expressed by President Bush are really not about Ted Cruz at all. They are the views of the GOP Establishment towards not just Senator Cruz but towards the entire Reagan wing of the GOP.
Through the decades this tension has taken the form of the 1976 Reagan-Ford nomination fight, the battle over the Panama Canal Treaty, and the 1980 Reagan-Bush fight. The abandonment by Bush 41 of his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge—what conservative activist Richard Viguerie called a “breach of faith”—was yet another example. We also see the role that Supreme Court nominations, from John Paul Stevens (Ford) to David Souter (Bush 41) to Harriet Miers (Bush 43), have played in this saga; and of course, the battle to contain the size of government, Bush 43’s budget busting bureaucratic No Child Left Behind a crowning achievement for the establishment. Moreover, the timidity of the Boehner-McConnell regime and the “reach across the aisle” fatuousness of the so-called “Cromnibus” are equally emblematic of the GOP Establishment.
Again I would ask just who really hijacked the GOP? Suffice it to say there is an overwhelming sentiment that, as Ed Rollins expressed, the real hijacking began the moment Reagan assented to putting George H.W. Bush on the ticket. This is the narrative that says from that moment on the GOP Establishment was at work to hijack the Reagan Revolution—and to a considerable extent they have succeeded, leaving the GOP in the hands of Establishment Republicans who across the decades have racked up one presidential loss after another and even in victory manage to so badly squander political capital that presidencies are either lost outright (with 37% of the vote in 1992) or left in such bad shape that a mere 22% of the American people approve on departure day (as true of the Bush 43 departure in January, 2009).
There is a reason why a Fox News poll shows 62% of Republicans feel betrayed by GOP leaders. There is a reason Donald Trump and Ben Carson—yes, Ted Cruz too—continue to do well or hold their own in all of these polls. There is a reason Eric Cantor is no longer a congressman (much less the Majority Leader) and John Boehner is soon to be an ex-Speaker and Kevin McCarthy will never replace him.
With the greatest respect for President Bush, what is really happening is the conservative base of the GOP is taking back their party—a party hijacked long ago by the lamented Trojan Horse: an Establishment GOP that, as fate would have it, is embodied by the Bush family. Good people that they are, one and all, Reaganites they are not.
What Ted Cruz, and so many others, are really fighting for is a conservative counterrevolution. And that counterrevolution is winning. Which is exactly why George W. isn’t fond of Ted Cruz.
So glad he can attack Cruz while for 7 year Obama has been transforming the US Constitution and County to a third world state.
Who Really Hijacked the GOP?
Karl Rove
Jorge Arbusto won't say anything against a Democrat, though. Like 0bama.
In that 7 years, he has watched as Obama:
* passed Obamacare
* had the IRS illegally target conservatives
*refused to fire VA administrators or fix the fact that our veterans STILL aren't getting the healthcare they deserve
*wasted tens of billions on b.s. 'clean energy'
*opened our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants
*wasted the blood and treasure our military spent in Iraq
*has refused to call our enemies 'radical Islamist terrorists'
*has made us the universal laughing stock with his inept foreign policy
*has racially divided this nation like never before
*has turned his back on Israel and embraced Iraq and Russia
There are dozens more, but you get the drift….. In spite of all of these transgressions by Obama, Bush hasn't opened his pie hole ONCE!!!
BUT NOW HE CAN'T HOLD HIS TONGUE AND COMPLAINS ABOUT TED CRUZ???
Tell me, just WHY does Bush deserve to get one ounce of respect after he has attacked (of all people), Ted Cruz? All of the Bush clan can go to hell!!!
Why only George W. Bush? Daddy Bush was the first to cozy up to the left and he set the table for Clinton. His sons are just more of the same, IMO. How many Bush’s does it take before the American working class figure them out?
Cruz and GW have a history. I thought it was good .. but evidently, it wasn’t always.
Cruz was Solicitor General of TX while GW was Governor. There was bound to be some sort of friction .. since Cruz is such a strict Constitution person.
But, remember Cruz did work a little issue called Bush v. Gore .. before the Supreme Court, and WON. So, if Cruz had any issue with Bush at that time, he was ready to put it aside for the sake of the LAW.
“How many Bush’s does it take before the American working class figure them out?”
The first George Bush …..he tossed the Reagan Revolution the first day…D.C. is nothing but a REICO racket….D.C. is like the Capitol in the Hunger games..
“The first George Bush …..he tossed the Reagan Revolution the first day”
LITERALLY the first day, and the GOP has never recovered.
I hope so.
Ted Cruz was Solicitor General of Texas when Rick Perry was Governor.
The reason he did that was because he was running against Reagan for the nomination, but Reagan won it .. and to make peace within the party, he asked GHWB to be his VP.
I was not really excited about GHWB becoming President, but it was better than any DemocRAT.
But, Cruz was Solicitor General of TX when GW Bush was Governor of TX.
Bush was Gov for 2 terms (I think), so Cruz might have been SG for only a few months before Bush got elected President.
I know Cruz did advise Bush during his campaign.
Ted Cruz, as Solicitor of Texas, fought and won a landmark ruling for U.S. sovereignty in Medellin v. Texas (Death penalty case of an illegal alien who raped and strangled 2 Texan girls) at the U.S. Supreme Court against 90 foreign nations and the President to ensure the supremacy of U.S. legal system against encroachment by international treaties and rulings of the “World Court.”
The U.S. President at that time was George W. Bush.
Cruz also won in the Medellin v Texas case in front of the U.S. Supremes. W and Condi wanted to give in to the U.N. World Court and forgo U.S. sovereignty and law. Medellin was an illegal who brutally raped and murdered two young Texas teens. caught and sentenced to death. while on death row the U.N. stepped in and stated that Texas hadn’t given the illegal Medellin an opportunity contact his Mexican consolate.
After helping with 2000 election recount, Ted Cruz worked at DOJ, then FTC before Greg Abbott asked him to be the Solicitor General of Texas.
Yes, he did advise Bush during the campaign and travelled with Bush in South Carolina before the primary there.
Cruz and GW have a history. I thought it was good .. but evidently, it wasn’t always.
******************
They did but not Cruz as Solicitor General of TX. That happened in 2003 after Bush was president.
Cruz did join the Bush Presidential Team in 1999 as an advisor and was intrumental
in the Bush V Gore Florida court case. He served as an associate deputy attorney general in
the U.S. Justice Department and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal
Trade Commission.
So Cruz did have some contact with President Bush but I’m guessing it was limited after
the legal issues were settled.
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