Disingenuous to the end. Well, to the end of Bob Schieffer’s distinguished on-air career.
That was Jeb Bush’s contribution in his interview on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. Using Schieffer’s farewell as the forum, Bush took pains to one more time deny that he was gaming the system with his formally undeclared presidential candidacy and his Right To Raise Money Super PAC.
Even the Justice Department is being implored to look into Right To Raise Red Flags and a candidate who for more than five months has been criss-crossing the country raising unlimited tons of money for campaign-style events and sugar-daddy recruiting.
When asked by Schieffer to respond to allegations that he was willfully violating campaign-finance laws, Bush was politely dismissive. “I would never do that,” he told Schieffer. He then noted that the wink-and-nod exercise would be ending soon.
“I’m nearing the end of this journey of traveling and listening to people, garnering, trying to get a sense of whether my candidacy would be viable or not,” he explained. “We’re going to completely adhere to the law, for sure. … And should I be a candidate, and that will be in the relatively near future where that decision will be made. There’ll be no coordination at all with any super PAC.”
So there.
In the mean time, Bush will keep making the case that, non-candidacy notwithstanding, he will continue to be his “own man.” His response to the U.S. State Department’s formal removal of Cuba from its official list of state sponsors of terrorism was illustrative. He said the action was “further evidence that President Obama seems more interested in capitulating to our adversaries than in confronting them. … I call on Congress to keep pressure on Cuba and hold the Administration accountable.”
So, Jeb Bush agrees with Marco Rubio, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the brothers Díaz-Balart, Rick Scott, Dick Cheney and the ghost of Fulgencio Batista. Imagine his stand if he weren’t his “own man.”
If Bush really wants anyone to credibly accept that he is, indeed, his “own man,” and not the next-up entitled one, he needs to say something like this really, really soon:
“My brother and his puppet masters did America a tragic disservice with the Iraqi war of choice. The world–not just the Middle East–is demonstrably worse for that invasion and chaotic, tragic aftermath. My dad and Uncle Colin were right in not wanting to invade Baghdad and become de facto occupiers of a Muslim country. My brother, who I still love dearly, allowed himself to be done in by a Neo-con job.”