¿Bush, Si; Christie, No?
Jeb Bush startled the Western World by announcing this week yes, folks, he is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.
Jeb (I’m the other one) Bush wants to be the third Bush to sit in the White House, in case you’ve lost count. That could be one more than the Adams family, which only had two (John and John Quincy). Going from the Adams to the Bushes, I argue, is yet another sign of the devolution that has been taking place since the Glorious Revolution of 1776.
For months, the man who had been the First Brother walked the ramparts in Miami night after night weighing the question: to be… or not to be… a candidate. He was weighing his options and counting his supporters’ millions before officially going for the trifecta.
Is this the last desperate measure of the moderate wing of the Republican Party to stop Comet Christie? Will the Christie machine stop meeting in the backroom of the IHOP in Hackensack, engineering a spontaneous draft movement? Should we Christieistas think it’s all over now that the mighty Bush name is in the race?
These are questions I am asked as the apparent campaign manager-without-portfolio of the Christie for President in 2024 organization. Where do I stand or sit on Bush?
Of course, I am shocked that the former governor of Florida is willing to risk his brother’s good reputation by stumbling into the political minefield of 2016, especially at the time they are still fumigating the Executive Mansion to clear the smell of the torture policy his brother launched.
I am also surprised he is climbing down from the ramparts this early. Being the first to throw his record into the ring automatically makes him the front-runner, the target of the other presumptives, the Gang of Nine who are always running like hamsters on the treadmill.
He may be a braggart, a bully, a compromiser, and overweight, but Chris Christie is not stupid.
Secondly, let me remind you, Christie is an avowed professed non-candidate. He has been a non-candidate since the reading of the last line of the Inaugural Address in Trenton in 2010.
There are those who say even if he was running, he would never have a chance. He was damaged by the Bridgegate scandal.
If you think Christie is scathed, Jeb (I’m the good one) Bush is not exactly unscathed.
Jeb Bush’s business record, since leaving the governorship, reads like a corporate rap sheet. His specialty was getting involved with young start-ups. It seemed every hot untested unprofitable young start-up in Miami included Jeb Bush as a luminary. A typical business that went bust was InnOvida, a manufacturer of inexpensive building materials. Jeb sat on the board of the company, whose shortcomings included fake documents, lying about the health of the business, and misappropriating $40 million in company funds. Its founder wound up in jail and lost most of the investors’ money.
Further details of Jebbo’s achievements in the world of business will be forthcoming, as the media smells something rotten in the Bush Prince’s Denmark. Suffice it to say, his record in the ethics and morality league is awesome. There are more holes in his resume than in Swiss cheese.
And then there is the legacy of the Bush First Family. Take his brother (44, as he is called colloquially at home). Please.
What’s a silly toll lane incident compared to the Iraq War, an unnecessary war that left us with trillions of war debt and the loss of blood and moral treasure, a war that is still not over. And the brother acting as an elder statesman and adviser who is in Lala Land (Texas) painting up a storm! You are no Winston Churchill somebody should tell him.
I will have more to say about Comet Christie’s path to the White House in future episodes of “the Christie Chronicles.” Stay tuned.
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Marvin Kitman
December 18, 2014