The Common Ills: Hejira

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Hejira

Is Jeb Bush an idiot?

That's the basic question raised in about 30 e-mails in the public e-mail account (maybe more, I haven't had time to through more than 50 e-mails).

The former governor of Florida is in the news cycle for Iraq. Eric Bradner (CNN) reports:

Jeb Bush said he would have done the same as his brother in deciding to go to war in Iraq if he had been president at the time.

His comments, in an interview with Fox News set to air on Monday night, come in the wake of Bush's private statement that he relies on his brother, former President George W. Bush, as an adviser on some Middle East affairs.

"I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got," Bush said in the interview.

Those comments are what the e-mails questioning his intelligence and/or sanity are about.

I think it's stupid for any government official to have backed an illegal war on Iraq.

But in terms of campaigning, his remarks are near genius.

As the 'antiwar' voices have fallen silent -- so that they could sever as temple prostitutes in The Cult of St. Barack -- we see what always happens.

One side triumphs.

Not by a big margin.

This is the tale of thirds.

A third of the American population is for something, a third is against it.

And then there is the middle third.

They move back and forth.

They are easily swayed.

You can see the reduced levels of opposition to the Iraq War since Barack came into office.

Why?

Temple whores shut their mouths.

The conservatives didn't.

So slowly they have eroded at the middle third.

Jeb can safely run on "I would have voted for the Iraq War" because (a) it plays to a base on the Republican side and (b) the middle's not going to judge him as harshly.

That middle third? They're not judging him as harshly because with the left abdicating their voices on Iraq, Iraq's become far less controversial and it's easier for many of them to be forgiving now.

Equally true, that middle third sees bravery -- whether they agree with Jeb or not -- in Jeb stating flat out that he would vote for the Iraq War.

That's not what makes Jeb's statement campaign genius.

On the left, there are people who still care about the Iraq War.

Who are against it.

Some, like me, are against it today as it continues under Barack Obama.

But even those with situational ethics -- the ones who ignore anything that took place in Iraq after January 2009 -- who are opposed to the Iraq War as a past moment are angered by Hillary Clinton's support for the war.

By raising the issue, Jeb's made Hillary and Iraq a focus yet again.

Hillary can't apologize, can't she's wrong.

That was her biggest problem in 2008.

Anyone not so concerned about how they looked would have immediately said, "Clearly it was a stupid mistake on my part and I regret it. I regret all the deaths that followed. I can label my vote as stupid but I can't take it back. What I can do, what I've tried to do, is learn from it. And let me talk about that . . ."

Had Hillary done that, it would have silenced a lot of the real objection to her over Iraq.

(It would not have silenced the faux objections voiced by a large number of non-Democrats who pretended -- at Huffington Post and elsewhere -- to be Democrats in order to trash Hillary 'from within.')

That would have worked in 2008.

It won't work today.

Not after her bellicose comments regarding Libya and other things.

She's enthralled with war and destruction.

And Jeb makes that the issue with his comments.

He gets a pass on war because his base supports war.

The left does not.

So it's 'ball's in your court' to Hillary as this brings up, yet again, Hillary's War Hawk like nature.

The forgotten war continues. Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) notes 250 violent deaths across Iraq today.

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name

The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4495.

The following community sites -- plus the Guardian -- have updated: