Media forces Jeb Bush to throw his brother under the bus
May 22, 2015, 10:15 AM | Updated: 10:38 pm
For more than a week now, political pundits have been obsessing over how Jeb Bush answered one question from Megyn Kelly. More precisely, they’ve been obsessing over how Jeb Bush answered a question that Megyn Kelly didn’t ask.
Kelly asked, “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion [of Iraq]?” But Bush answered the question, “Based on what your brother and other political leaders thought they knew at the time, would you have sought the invasion of Iraq?”
Politicians frequently answer questions they aren’t asked in order to avoid the questions they actually are; however, in this case Bush appeared to genuinely misunderstand the question. Oddly, there was no follow-up from Megyn Kelly pointing out to Governor Bush that he’d answered the wrong question, which may have cleared things up right there.
Bush then spent the better part of a week trying to answer the actual question before someone finally advised him that “no” would suffice. Of course Jeb Bush being a Bush, “no” came out as, “If we’re all supposed to answer hypothetical questions, ‘Knowing what we know now what would you have done?’ I would not have engaged, I would not have gone into Iraq. That’s not to say that the world isn’t safer because Saddam Hussein is gone, it is significantly safer. That’s not to say….”
It was the best he could do.
Having forced him into an implicit declaration that his brother’s actions were a “mistake,” the gods of the media were satisfied. Bush was damaged. The Republican god bleeds.