The Daily Show's Jon Stewart slammed Jeb Bush for his flip-flopping answers on the Iraq, and for the way he's run his "unofficial" presidential campaign, so he can coordinate with his PAC. While I appreciate the fact that he's being hammered for running a really awful campaign, officially announced or not, there's one thing that really bothered me about this segment, and the same goes for almost all of the coverage we've seen of Jeb Bush on foreign policy.
He was one of the original members of PNAC. He should never be allowed by anyone in the media, or comedians, or anyone else to ever distance himself from his brother on the invasion of Iraq because he's every bit as responsible for that foreign policy debacle as his brother is. Between that and him hiring all of the same foreign policy "experts" that helped his brother lie us into invading Iraq in the first place, Bush can spin it all he wants, but he and his brother are tied at the hip on Iraq and the public should be reminded of this every time the word Iraq comes out of his mouth.
Here's more on the segment from Mediaite: ‘Was That So Hard?’ Stewart Wades Through Jeb Bush’s ‘Weird’ Iraq Answers:
Jon Stewart tonight waded through all of Jeb Bush‘s different answers on Iraq and what he would have done differently from his brother.
Stewart mocked Bush for first saying he would have done the same thing, then saying he misheard, then saying mistakes get made all the time, then saying these questions do a disservice to the soldiers (which Stewart deemed a “weird” response), then finally saying he wouldn’t have invaded after all.
A rather exasperated Stewart went, “Thank you! Was that so hard?”
And Raw Story: Jon Stewart hammers Jeb Bush’s Iraq flip-flop: Was it that hard to distance yourself from ‘W’?:
Jon Stewart tackled ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s non-candidacy on Thursday’s Daily Show, arguing that Bush is insisting he’s not in the 2016 presidential race in order to avoid campaign rules regarding his revenue stream.
“I see what’s happening: once you announce you’re running, you’re not allowed to coordinate with your super PAC. So you have to tell people — the voters — you’re not running,” Stewart explained. “I guess it’s better to run for president and pretend you’re not than to illegally coordinate with your super PAC and pretend you’re not. Because the first rule of politics is, you can lie to people. But don’t ever lie to your money.”
Stewart’s remarks came a day after Bush mistakenly told reporters, “I’m running for president in 2016.”
But by then, the host said, Bush was already taking all of the traditional steps to prepare for a campaign.
“There’s surely a perfectly good reason why then, if you’re not a candidate, you’ve set up a traditional PAC; a super PAC which is poised to raise $100 million by the end of May; a non-profit which has raised secret money; that you’ve gone to events in New Hampshire, and Iowa, and Nevada; you [made] a commencement speech at a school so Christian students are banned from pre-marital book sharing; gave a foreign policy speech to the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs; gone to CPAC; an NRA convention; assembled an advisory team; and set up headquarters in Miami,” Stewart said. “Maybe Jeb just happens to be a guy with the most boring bucket list ever.”
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