The Bush Hater's Case for Jeb Bush

TheWeek.com:

Now, I very much dread the idea of Clinton-Bush Part Two, which I fear will play out like a grittier, cash-grabbing reboot of 1992. And nominating a man with a now-toxic family legacy is the surest path this side of Donald Trump to canceling all of the GOP's natural advantages against Hillary Clinton.

But strangely enough, he seems to be the only top-tier candidate on the Republican side who seems to have learned something from the disaster of his brother's presidency.

Yes, he spent a painful week earlier this year awkwardly trying to clarify his views on the Iraq War. He was so determined not to talk about his brother's war that he made it his own problem. But he ended up saying this: "Knowing what we now know, what would you have done? I would have not engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq."

Jeb Bush also went on a brain-shopping spree sometime ago. His advisers include people from across the Republican spectrum, including ultra-hawks like Paul Wolfowitz and John Hannah. But The Wall Street Journal reported that he seems more in line with his father's foreign policy, and the broader realist tradition:

In private, Jeb Bush has expressed admiration for former Secretary of State James Baker and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, two veterans of his father's administration known for advocating restraint and a tight focus on national interests, according to people familiar with those discussions. [The Wall Street Journal]

Bush has already had an occasion to distance himself from James Baker, after the old foreign policy hand gave a tough, anti-Benjamin Netanyahu speech to the dovish Israeli advocacy group J Street. But it is clear that Jeb Bush at least respects his non-neoconservative foreign policy advisers.

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