Forget What We Know Now: We Knew Then the Iraq War Was a Joke
So presidential hopeful Jeb Bush is taking a pounding for face-planting a question about his brother’s invasion of Iraq. Apparently, our national media priests want accountability from leaders on this issue.
One of the first “gotcha” moments of the 2016 presidential race came about as follows: Reporters following Jeb Bush on a pre-announcement campaign tour smartly decided to badger him about his position on the Iraq invasion. “Knowing what he knows now,” they asked, would he have done the same thing as his brother?
Jeb’s answer was characteristically Bushian: yes, no, and maybe. Bush III somehow hadn’t prepared for the one question he was most absolutely certain to face the moment he decided take a step in the direction of the White House.
It was a little bit like invading a country and having no plan at all for what you do after you seize the capital. In other words, the kind of thing that should disqualify a person not just from the presidency, but maybe also from having a driver’s license. George W. specialized in these jaw-dropping oversights, and it seems his brother might have a similar talent.
Over the course of four or five very painful days Jeb pushed his Iraq position all over the board. First he said yes, he would have done the same thing as his brother (and so would have Hillary Clinton, he pointed out). Then he said he misunderstood the question. Then he said that even answering the question would dishonor the troops (which I thought was an impressively clever and Rove-ian response!).
Head by now turned all the way around, in the fashion of nature’s magnificent owl or Linda Blair, he finally told Fox’s Megyn Kelly, “Knowing what we know now. . .I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq.”
It was a no-win question for Jeb. He had two choices with this question: either send his brother up the river or set himself up for a general election campaign wearing a position that polls say could hurt him with 70 percent of voters.
The media quickly piled on. “Jeb Bush’s Iraq Stumble” was the title of the Wall Street Journal’s “Journal Editorial Report” on Fox. “On Iraq Question, Jeb Bush Stumbles and GOP Hopefuls Pounce,” countered the Washington Post.
“Jeb Bush’s Revisionist History of the Iraq War,” wrote New York Times Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal. “Yeah, Jeb Bush’s argument that the Iraq War was right even in retrospect is insane,” tweeted current New York and erstwhile New Republic writer Jonathan Chait early in the story cycle, when Jeb was still defending the war.
A few writers, like Steve Chapman at the Chicago Tribune, criticized Jeb for not disavowing the “reckless adventurism” of the Bush II era that led to the war in the first place. In other words, Chapman blasted Jeb for being wrong then and now.