He was asked that question by John Dickerson on
"Face the Nation" yesterday:
BUSH: Look, I have said -- I -- because anybody is better than Hillary Clinton. Let me just be clear about that. But I have great doubts about Donald Trump's ability to be commander in chief. I really do. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt to see how the campaign unfolded. But if you listen to him talk, it's kind of scary, to be honest with you, because he's not a serious candidate. He doesn't talk about the issues at hand that are of national security importance for our country. To keep us safe is the first priority of the president. And he's all over the map, misinformed at best, and preying on people's fear at worst.
Dickerson asked the apt question: "How would any of that specifically be better than Hillary Clinton?" What was Jeb supposed to say?
BUSH: Well, I will let voters decide about Donald Trump. I'm pretty confident that, the more they hear of him, the less likely it is he's going to get the Republican nomination.
Later, on the pundit panel, WaPo's David Ignatius effused:
IGNATIUS: I thought [Jeb] was powerful in taking out, calling out Donald Trump. I thought that this was moment in which he went to the heart of the matter, that Trump is playing on people's fears. This is -- it's getting toward Bush's last chance.
AND: Ignatius also summed up the whole show like this (addressing the host, John Dickerson):
You know, John, I heard one thing today on your show that really surprised me. I heard from John McCain talk about candidates bloviating in this race. I heard from Ben Carson talk about hateful rhetoric that was hurting the country. And I heard from Jeb Bush how Donald Trump was preying on people's fears. It's the first time I can remember hearing on one show three candidates speak out against the tone in the Republican race.
There's a real effort, in the elite mainstream media, to portray the GOP as ugly and aggressive and fear-mongering. And this is morphing into a focus on Trump: He,
specifically, contains what normally is seen as permeating the GOP. The elite media are cheering on the GOP characters who are trying to take out Trump by adopting this rhetoric, but if Trump is taken out, it won't be long before mild-mannered Jeb and gentle Ben are accused of ugly aggressiveness and fear-mongering.
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59 comments:
Sounds like my thoughts on Jeb. Would I vote for him over Hillary?
No. I probably just wouldn't vote.
It was a mistake to call him scary - it reinforces the media's narrative about all Republicans. Bush should have said Trump has proven himself too ignorant for the job. Every time a new subject comes up his first statement proves he knows nothing about it.
How would Trump be better than Hillary?
With Hillary, the American people can never know if she will sell us out for some private benefit for herself. She's corrupt. And a skilled liar.
"BUSH: Look, I have said -- I -- because anybody is better than Hillary Clinton. Let me just be clear about that."
I do not find that a clear answer to the question put to him at all.
It seems anytime someone says they want to be "clear" about something it means they have just finished laying a cloud of squid ink.
I am Laslo.
Jeb is an over cooked frog of the World Capital Flow guys that hate the idea of little people voting themselves an American Middle class revival that hampers the tsunami of Asian Trade Wealth. They basically prefer Hillary over either Trump or a platitude smoke blower like JEB.
They much prefer the current way of our Presidential Tyrant ruling without a Representative Assembly. What did empowering an Estates General ever do for Louis XVI anyway. He was soon removed, head and all, and that lead directly to Napoleon.
Bush shows that HE is an idiot. The guy he says is not a serious candidate is leading all the polls, pulls 15,000 people to his rallies and is in fact speaking about issues Americans are interested in.
Meanwhile Ignatius is playing on liberal fears of the other, pandering to the liberal oikophobes who tell themselves terrifying stories about what Americans who live in places that don't vote Democrat are like.
Jeb has been dismissed by the media as not having the fire in his gut to win his primary campaign, let alone the presidency.
So now they are propping him up, because their own narrative says he can't win against their chosen one - Hillary.
It is like watching reruns of Dole or McCain or Romney, where the candidate that can't win against a Dem is pushed, pushed, pushed, until he stumbles over the finish line - just behind the Democrat.
Ignatius is an Obama apologist. His armchair analysis is almost always wrong.
W's incompetence made Obama seem like a plausible president. Obama's incompetence makes Trump seem like a plausible president. We keep defining the presidency down. Jeb's problem is that he can't effectively criticize Trump without saying that his brother was a bad president. Invading Iraq was a terrible decision. NCLB was a terrible decision. Homeland Security was a terrible decision. Medicare Part D was a terrible decision. Jeb thinks he's running against Trump, Rubio, etc. He's running against his brother's record.
Trump is a goofball but he's the anti-Obama and the anti-W.
Dickerson asked the apt question: "How would any of that specifically be better than Hillary Clinton?" What was Jeb supposed to say? "
How about saying that the corrupt grifter Hillary Clinton would be the third Obama term and who in their right mind wants that and that while all of the Republican candidates would be infinitely better than Clinton yours truly here is the best of the Republicans.
I like Trump but national security is one of those areas that I have some major disagreements with him. He keeps saying if he is President we will have a big, beautiful, powerful, military.
But then all the more recent uses of that military he is against.
What's the point of having a powerful military that you don't use?
Jeb! thinks he has my vote because he's not Hillary. Not this time. Republicans need to put up a conservative or I don't ink the spot in that row. Not gonna do it this time. If Hillary is elected, so be it. It will speed the collapse; then we can rebuild.
Laslo explains "traditionally" before "traditionally" is allowed to be "clear".
That's the quality of Laslo, Althousian readers.
One way or the other, Trump will be with us until election day. If he's not the GOP candidate, he'll be a third party candidate, and he'll be out there and on the debate stage, tearing up Hillary Clinton. I think Hillary is on track to win, but I think we'll see her opposed by someone who will not pull the punches. She deserves a hard test, and she will get it, regardless of whom the GOP nominates.
Jeb has never been my candidate, but when he says no one would be worse than Hillary!, he expresses my sentiments well.
And I hope there's a special place in Hell for anyone who stays home on Election Day because they don't "like" the Republican nominee, and thereby help to elect Hillary!
"There's a real effort, in the elite mainstream media, to portray the GOP as ugly and aggressive and fear-mongering"
As opposed to the nice, accommodating, hope-inspiring Dems.
So what else is new?
Jeb's actual "last chance" was about ten chances ago. If he ever had any chance at all.
Bush: "And he's all over the map, misinformed at best, and preying on people's fear at worst."
Ignatius: "I thought that this was moment in which he went to the heart of the matter, that Trump is playing on people's fears."
Is there a difference between "preying" and "playing" on people's fears? Obama governs by fear: is he preying or playing?
Gavin de Becker wrote about "Fear" as a positive intuition, and itemized a list of "pre-incident indicators" (PINS) that should instill fear in potential victims.
Interestingly, de Becker's PINS list "is one that reads like a how-to-play-book of the establishment politician.
And isn't that a large part of the "fear" that Trump is either "preying" or "playing" on?
The Gift of Fear
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence is a nonfiction self-help book (1997) written by Gavin de Becker. The book provides strategies to help readers avoid trauma and violence by teaching them various warning signs and precursors to violence.
By finding patterns in stories of violence and abuse, de Becker seeks to highlight the inherent predictability of violence. explores various settings where violence may be found—the workplace, the home, the school, dating—and describes what de Becker calls pre-incident indicators (PINS). When properly identified, these PINS can help violence be avoided; when violence is unavoidable, de Becker claims it can usually be predicted and better understood. The Gift of Fear also describes de Becker’s MOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems, which have been employed by various celebrities and government agencies to predict and prevent violence.
PINS (Pre-Incident Indicators)
Forced Teaming. This is when a person implies that he has something in common with his chosen victim, acting as if they have a shared predicament when that isn't really true. Speaking in "we" terms is a mark of this, i.e. "We don't need to talk outside... Let's go in."
Charm and Niceness. This is being polite and friendly to a chosen victim in order to manipulate him or her by disarming their mistrust.
Too many details. If a person is lying they will add excessive details to make themselves sound more credible to their chosen victim.
Typecasting. An insult is used to get a chosen victim who would otherwise ignore one to engage in conversation to counteract the insult. For example: "Oh, I bet you're too stuck-up to talk to a guy like me." The tendency is for the chosen victim to want to prove the insult untrue.
Loan Sharking. Giving unsolicited help to the chosen victim and anticipating they'll feel obliged to extend some reciprocal openness in return.
The Unsolicited Promise. A promise to do (or not do) something when no such promise is asked for; this usually means that such a promise will be broken. For example: an unsolicited, "I promise I'll leave you alone after this," usually means the chosen victim will not be left alone. Similarly, an unsolicited "I promise I won't hurt you" usually means the person intends to hurt their chosen victim.
Discounting the Word "No". Refusing to accept rejection.
the pastor even took a shot at him at mass yesterday but not by name. so I do what I usually do, roll my eyes and make faces at him only he can see.
I'm a maverick guys! All my years of courting the mainstream media are really gonna pay off for the GOP now.
Except it didn't. Though McCain did become a sober, sensible, 'why can't all Republicans be like him' in 2012, when the left waxed nostalgia over 'good' Republicans, as opposed to that insane crazy Mitt Romney.
To hell with Jeb!, to hell with the GOP establishment, Hilary Clinton, the media, and the shitlib-cuckservative alliance to turn America into a less functional Brazil. All aboard the Trump Train.
Ann Althouse said...
One way or the other, Trump will be with us until election day. If he's not the GOP candidate, he'll be a third party candidate, and he'll be out there and on the debate stage, tearing up Hillary Clinton. I think Hillary is on track to win, but I think we'll see her opposed by someone who will not pull the punches. She deserves a hard test, and she will get it, regardless of whom the GOP nominates.
11/30/15, 10:04 AM"
Are you saying if Trump loses the nomination he will go third party and cause the Republican to lose but if he wins the nomination Hillary will still win? What makes you believe that Obama is so popular the country wants a third Obama term?
Hillary get a hard test? From what newspaper, magazine, television media?
She has a record deserving to be a felon in jail, yet she is still a presidential candidate, propped up exclusively by her ability to reward those who bribe her or her husband, the Democrat National Committee, leftist progressive authoritarian statists, and news media. But I repeat myself.
While I have $100 bet on Hillary to win, it is only because I need the $100, not because I think that her as president will be any better than Eleanor Iselin.
"Are you saying if Trump loses the nomination he will go third party and cause the Republican to lose but if he wins the nomination Hillary will still win?"
I think the Republicans are going to lose, whatever Trump does.
"What makes you believe that Obama is so popular the country wants a third Obama term?"
I don't think they want it, but I don't think there will be another, better offer.
It seems to be a race between the difficulty people feel with liking Hillary Clinton's personality and the difficulty people have liking Trump's male leader style.
So do we want a realist promising to fix the open border and our bad trade deals or do we want a Woman who is so tough that she can continue to ignore them.
Trump would no doubt be better than Hillary, as President.
Jeb! would be better than Hillary as president.
However, I do not think either Trump or Jeb! are the strongest candidates in the General.
If you're conservative, and really want to send a message, send a few shekels to Ted Cruz.
If you're more moderate, less ideologically Conservative, more pragmatic, less dogmatic, send a few shekels to Marco Rubio.
Also, don't buy into Althouse's default mantra -- Hillary will win, because the GOP alternative is worse. That has no sound basis.
It's the fear mongers against the tear mongers.
Nice reasoning.
No better offer = how the Republican lost me
Patent pending.
Small mongers have pretty much gone out of business owing to high employment costs with Obamacare and insurance and regulation.
Only the mega-mongers remain, since they can afford the lawyers on staff where the small guys can't.
I don't think they want it, but I don't think there will be another, better offer.
The women's vote. If you can't have a woman, at least don't vote for a man.
If Ignatius and Dickerson call Republicans mean and hateful, and someone shoots a Republican, would Ignatius and Dickerson be considered to have incited the shooter?
Please pass the popcorn.
What tone are the Democrats setting with their campaign to elect a proven habitual liar and criminal under investigation by the left wing partisan FBI? Media don't seem too interested in that discussion.
But if you listen to him talk, it's kind of scary, to be honest with you, because he's not a serious candidate. He doesn't talk about the issues at hand that are of national security importance for our country.
You know what's really scary, ¡Jeb!? Having both parties and the permanent foreign policy establishment stuffed with "serious" people whose idea of "national interest" doesn't seem to have much at all to do with the interests of actual American citizens. As well as being incompetent to the point of insanity.
To keep us safe is the first priority of the president.
Who's "us", Jeb? Do you have any idea?
And he's all over the map, misinformed at best, and preying on people's fear at worst.
It really is remarkable how the governing classes of the West all seem to be berating their citizens from the same hymn book these days: same memes, same vocabulary, same obdurate refusal to address dissent as anything but the irrational fears of hate-filled rubes. The American establishment should be deeply grateful that Trump is providing them with some crazy to grab onto in their flailing defense of their right to rule. It speaks to how far gone they are in let-them-eat-cakery that they're incapable of making competent use of the gift.
I thought [Jeb] was powerful in taking out, calling out Donald Trump.
This is the gayest sentence of the year.
I thought that this was moment in which he went to the heart of the matter, that Trump is playing on people's fears.
There it is again, "fears". They've simply given up on having any kind of adult, rational response to dissent of any kind.
It is not about the candidates so much as the parties behind them.
4 more years with Pelosi, Schumer, Wassermann Schultz?
I do love how the party of "war on women!" and "they're coming for your birth control!" and "they'll make you have back alley abortions and force you to raise the hundreds of thousands of babies conceived through incestuous rape every year!" and of course "their policies will permanently damage the climate beyond repair if they're elected next year!" talks about how awful it is to use fear in your political message. It's almost as good as when the Media complains about Republicans "politicizing" an issue the Media is trying desperately to pin on the Republicans and do them political harm.
Ann Althouse said...The elite media are cheering on the GOP characters who are trying to take out Trump by adopting this rhetoric, but if Trump is taken out, it won't be long before mild-mannered Jeb and gentle Ben are accused of ugly aggressiveness and fear-mongering.
Yes, that's a solid analysis and prediction. If recent history is any guide the Republican party (and their nominee) will not be able (nor willing, possibly) to counter that, and we'll welcome our Democrat president in November.
mccullough: "Invading Iraq was a terrible decision."
Actually, when judged on the facts according to the relevant law and policy, ie, the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) enforced by the US, it's clear that the decision for Operation Iraqi Freedom was correct.
To set the record straight on the Iraq intervention, see:
1. Explanation (link) of the law and policy, fact basis for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
2. Saddam: What We Now Know (link) by Jim Lacey* draws from the Iraq Survey Group (re WMD) and Iraqi Perspectives Project (re terrorism). * Dr. Lacey was a researcher and author for the Iraqi Perspectives Project (link).
3. UN Recognizes 'Major Changes' In Iraq (link) by VP Joe Biden on behalf of the UN Security Council.
4. Withdrawal Symptoms: The Bungling of the Iraq Exit (link) by OIF senior advisor Rick Brennan.
5. How Obama Abandoned Democracy in Iraq (link) by OIF official and senior advisor Emma Sky.
Just look at how "ugly", "extreme", and "radical" John McCain and Mitt Romney became in 2008 and 2012. Now we've all forgotten about it.
Whoever becomes the nominee will inherit the blame, in the media, for Trump and his supporters. Any Republican candidate who forgets that, and criticizes other Republicans at the media's behest, is a fool.
Regarding Hillary Clinton on national security, see this recommendation to her: How to talk about your Iraq vote.
My misgivings about Secretary Clinton as a potential Commander in Chief relate to a passage in Robert Gates' book, "Duty":
"Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”
If true, those admissions alone of rank self-interest and parochial partisanship trumping the grave stakes in Iraq should disqualify Secretary Clinton from being Commander in Chief.
What makes you believe that Obama is so popular the country wants a third Obama term?"
I don't think they want it, but I don't think there will be another, better offer.
Yeah, because putting the country into bankruptcy by giving everything away for free, and letting everyone on earth into the country is a great offer, right??
The question goes right back to all of the Trump supporters; will you all support a Rubio-Kasich ticket?
Professor Althouse may still be chapped about Republicans supporting same sex marriage bans (as opposed to Democrats, who simply faked it all); but if a Rubio-Kasich ticket wins Florida (Rubio) and Ohio (Kasich), where do Democrats make up the electoral votes?
I think Hillary is on track to win, but I think we'll see her opposed by someone who will not pull the punches- Ms. Althouse
When a law professor pulling down a six figure income thinks government owes her her feminine hygiene products, then I fear she is right.
Ms. Althouse my have just put the 47% of takers that Romney referred to in the last election over the top.
Democrats win by a tampon.
The one person Trump has been very limited in attacking is Hillary Clinton. Remember, he claimed he made her go to his [last] wedding.
I doubt any attacks he would make on her would be accurate, or, if accurate, about anything that matters.
The only thing he's done about Benghazi is that she laughed - some other times. (albeit one time is at a spot or spots during her Benghazi testimony.)
Of all the accusations you could make, he makes one that is basically untrue. (The laughter is a problem, but she uses that to cover up some problem with what she has said or is saying. But she's not fiddling while Rome burns - at least not in front of unfriendly witnesses.)
I don't think Donald Trump will get the Republican presidential nomination even if he comes out of the primary/caucus season with 35% of the delegates to the convention and nobody else has more than 20%.
This is not like it was with Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 with the Democrats. The antipathy toward him is much, much greater than it was with these other two. Trump might get Cruz's endorsement, but nobody else's.
We might, after all, get a convention that goes beyond the first ballot.
Democrat President with Democrat Congress and we will have singlepayer medical "insurance" with SS witholding at 20%.
In all seriousness, Republican candidates have had a disadvantage for some time, as more of the LIV respond to the "a chicken in every pot, and a car in every garage" promises. Of course, in 1928 that promise was made by Hoover.
But trying to explain to voters why promising more goodies from the US treasury can't be sustained economically will always be harder than just promising more stuff.
While I think Trump has elevated the illegal immigration problem, I don't think it is the crisis that a potential looming deficit crisis presents.
"Given its sheer size, if the interest rate on that debt were to rise by even 1%, the annual federal deficit rises by $180 billion. A 2% increase in interest rate levels would up the federal deficit by $360 billion, and if rates were 5% higher, the annual federal deficit rises by $900 billion."- Daniel Ameriman, CFA
Right now the Fed is buy over 60% of US debt. They can't and won't do that forever. At some point interest rates will rise. (Probably sooner if a Republican is elected president-- but that's a different topic. Politics trumps everything.)
I supported Kasich, since he championed deficit reduction while in Congress. I think Ted Cruz will push a similar less huge government agenda. Remember with zero based budgeting, the budget always grows. Slowing the growth is all that we need-- and something that was accomplished by the sequestration that began in 2013.
It's alittle difficult logistically to go third party if someone does not get the nomination at the convention, because of ballot access rules in many states, butthere can be lawsuits, and someone might be able to get the nomination of a pre-existing third party in many states. ALl 50 states, very hard.
I could see Donald Trump trying to grab the Republican ballot line in one or more states, and that could cause problems, even if it none of them is a state that a Republican can usually hope to win. The selection of whom the Electors will vote for is not binding on the local party.
The one thing is, Donald Trump has said (maybe that's a lie) he wouldn't run unless he thought he could win, and third-party candidates don't win. (By 1860, the Republican Party was no longer a third party, and it wasn't even really in 1856)
If Jeb seriously thinks anyone is better than Hillary, I question his judgment. He has said and done some boneheaded things in this campaign, but to say Trump is a safer bet for the Presidency than Hillary is beyond the pale.
@Brian E:Right now the Fed is buy(ing) over 60% of US debt.
"Buy" is not a very good word for what the Fed is doing. The Fed creates money out of thin air, by fiat, and exchanges it for US debt, and there is no other entity in the world that can "buy" things in this way.
I point this out, not to say whether this practice is good or bad--I confess I am quite unable to figure out whether it is or not. Just to point out that "buy" is a verb with a totally different meaning, when performed by the Federal Reserve.
I read somewhere that the bulk of Trump's support is not from Conservatives, but, rather, from working class, blue collar white males, who have been or fear marginalization in the work place.
Makes sense to me - I will try to find that article. But that doesn't sound like the Althouse commentators here, who seem, at the surface, to be Conservative types.
Memo to Conservatives - vote for Cruz, not Trump. You'll have a better shot at winning and at implementing conservative policies.
Anyone who knows what Hillary has done and still votes for her is an enemy of decency and freedom. That makes them a bad person. Not voting is acceptable. Voting for her is not.
If Hillary wins that is the end of the republic.
Once again, this just shows what a clown show all these MSM talks shows are. Someone up thread got it right, nothing about the issues just a lot of gas about the fucking "Tone".
Of course, Jeb, Kasich, and all the other RINO losers are going to focus in on Trump's "tone". They can't talk about the issues because the Repub voters are on Trump's side.
BTW, i have no doubt that someone like Kasich or Bloomberg will run 3rd party if trump is nominated. The Rino's ran a 3rd candidate against Reagan, and Anderson was the same sort of smug, "I'm the only adult in the room" type that Kasisch is. BTW, John Anderson is still alive and still thinks he would've been a better POTUS than that "Cowboy" Reagan.
Donald Trumps Democracy
@Georgie, let me say this to you in the kindest possible way. If you really believe what you say ("If Jeb seriously thinks anyone is better than Hillary, I question his judgment") you are an idiot.
I am prepared to concede arguendo (that's lawyer talk for "I don't really mean it, but just suppose that I do") that Hillary! would be a better president than some candidate X. But to assert that she is better than every other possible candidate? She's the last gasp of the old liberal Democrat faction. If that's the kind of President you want, she's your only choice. I guess that's what you mean. I guess that when Althouse says that a Hillary! victory is inevitable she means that she thinks that's what the People want.
But I don't think so. I really don't think Tromp is the "one we've been waiting for". But whoever it turns out to be, I hope and pray that it's someone the American people will accept as an alternative to what we've been suffering through for the past 7+ years.
This lace looks like a warehouse.
I guess you can work in a warehouse.
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"If Jeb seriously thinks anyone is better than Hillary, I question his judgment" is not saying that she is better than everyone but that she is not worse than everyone. But I would be very careful before saying of someone that he or she is worse. You'd need not only somebody bad, who might cover up things, but somebody very good at coverups, too. And you don't know what eveil Hillary would ountenance.
The elite media are cheering on the GOP characters who are trying to take out Trump by adopting this rhetoric, but if Trump is taken out, it won't be long before mild-mannered Jeb and gentle Ben are accused of ugly aggressiveness and fear-mongering.
Yeah, I remember when McCain and Romney were "good" Republicans.
Georgie said...
"If Jeb seriously thinks anyone is better than Hillary, I question his judgment. He has said and done some boneheaded things in this campaign, but to say Trump is a safer bet for the Presidency than Hillary is beyond the pale."
A rabid shaved gibbering monkey would be better than Hillary. Anyone who votes for Hillary is a bad person. She knowingly lied to the faces of families of recently deceased vets and shook their hands. She is a disgusting human being.
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