Jeb Bush, the Allegedly Smart, Safe, Wonk-ish Establishment Choice, Mumbles Another Gaffe

He asked why we need to spend "half a billion dollars a year on women's health," and is drawing all sorts of fire, for which he doesn't seem prepared for return-fire.

His intent, I assume, was to question the subsidies for Planned Parenthood, but wound up questioning money spent on women's health, period. Which, frankly, might turn out to be the same damn thing (I kinda suspect that "women's health" is largely a euphemism for "abortions"), but his actual statement was politically inept.

"Conservatives aren't happy," said a GOP strategist close to a rival campaign. "He just set the entire movement back with a gaffe that conflated the horrific videos at Planned Parenthood with women’s health. This, at a time when even some Democrats in Congress were feeling the pressure to vote to defund Planned Parenthood."

I don't mind the sentiment -- any "Why are we spending so much?" question is one I like -- but he's just not coming off as the "Smarter Bush" we were promised.

AllahPundit writes of him privately, allegedly calling Trump a "buffoon," a "clown," and an "asshole," and makes a lot of good points in his post.

Basically: If we're going to have an amnesty-shilling Establishment bore shoved down our throats -- why the old, mumblestumble white guy, rather than the sharp, dashing young Cuban guy?

And why the hell didn't Jeb Bush show some passion when Trump made a crude crack about him having to love illegals, because of his wife? Why not publicly show some ire?

The entire political class is so robotic and bloodless. And dishonest. And passive-aggressive.

None of these are masculine traits, and the GOP is a party that favors masculine virtues. Our female voters, too, favor masculine virtues. Not this programmed, bloodless eunuch stuff.

Ah well.

It doesn't matter anyway, the country is doomed.

Oh, and Hot Air just put up this story: For Some Republicans, a Trump Victory Looks Increasingly Possible.

Yeah, that's my take. The only reason Trump can't win the nomination, so far, is that it's "unthinkable" that he should do so; and yet, he's way out in front.

Here's how out in front he is: A week ago we heard from his wife's divorce paper that Trump had attacked her and sexually assaulted her in a way she likened to rape, then his spokesman came out and said, amazingly, that it is simply legally impossible for a husband to rape his wife.

That is definitionally retrograde: The law has not been such for like 30 years.

And yet -- this still doesn't seem to give Trump's supporters any pause about his electability.

So, the "unthinkable" is something everyone should start thinking about.

The simple problem is that that the base now hates the GOP, because, pretty clearly, the GOP hates the base.

The GOP has no goodwill left. None at all.

Not after Mississippi, not after the Corker sell-out, not after the continuing resolution sell-out, not after the amnesty sell-out, not after the Obamacare sell-outs.

Not a single thing the GOP says to me matters to me, personally, at all, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

So GOP people saying things like You can't possibly vote for Trump, it's unthinkable cuts absolutely no ice.

We're simply not in a political alliance any longer. I formally resigned from the party, and as you can tell, I think, I'm not bluffing. I am done. Done, done, done.

The party, meanwhile, has treated its own voters as enemies to be destroyed.

And they're surprised people are now willing to do just about anything to destroy them?

Correction: Wow, this one was bad. I mis-read the article AllahPundit cited and came away with the bizarrely stupid idea that we spend one trillion per year on women's health.

That figure is for all health care.

posted by Ace at 01:51 PM

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